But We Can Try!

"Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for;
through the fear of the LORD a man avoids evil." Proverbs 16:6

"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One." 1 John 2:1

Every day sin is there. It taunts us and teases us, it tempts us to do what we know is wrong. Thank God that Jesus died for us, to take those sins away from us and cleanse us. It's human nature to sin- the devil is always there trying to make us stumble, and we are so lucky and so blessed to have the grace of God to forgive us when we do make a mistake. He is a loving father who will always welcome us with open arms and tell us it's okay.

But sometimes, I think we tend to take advantage of that grace. We can rationalize that "just one more time" will be okay, because tomorrow is a new day and we will be forgiven of the tresspasses of yesterday. And we will... but it seems to me that we can try harder. We can try to attain a blemish free life. And why not? Why can't I set my sights on making it through the day as stain free as I woke this morning. Yes, I may not succeed, but if I wake in the morning knowing that I'm going to fail at some point, I may as well not even get out of bed. I need to wake each day with a new attitude, with the idea that this is going to be the day that I live like I have Jesus in my heart. Today is the day that I learn to love my neighbor as myself, and today is the day that I share the love of Christ with my nieghbor. There's nothing wrong with setting a high expectation, because I do know that should I fail, that I will always have another opportunity, that's the beauty of grace.

Grace will always give me another shot, but I need to not take advantage of that. I need to not say that it's okay to fail because I'll have another chance. It's not okay. It's never okay, and I think we've been too complacent about that. I think we use it as an excuse to sin, the "well, we're not perfect, we're only human after all"...Yes! We are human! But when I am standing before My Lord on that day of judgement I don't want him to look at me and say "Well, you tried, I guess...over and over and over again." I want more, and I think we can try for more. I think we can reach for that perfection, and who knows, maybe once or twice we can succeed!

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9