Everybody makes mistakes...

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  -Jeremiah 29:11 


  From the moment we can talk, we want to be big kids. Throughout the course of this week, my eight-year-old brother has said over and over, "I wish I was a teenager." Of course, upon hearing this I would laugh and tell him to enjoy his youth while he could. But it's true. Little girls play in mommy's make up and wear her clothes. Little boys...well, little boys are characteristically little boys. Playing in dirt and digging up worms, playing video games and American football – it's no different that when they're grown. [insert rimshot- haha... 'cause boys are messy....yeah..] We play house and office because we want to be grown up. We don't want to stay kids forever.
  In the same way we should desire to grow in our relationship with God. We should want to be big kids in the faith.


Ephesians 4:13-15 All of us are to be as one in the faith and in knowing the Son of God. We are to be full-grown Christians standing as high and complete as Christ is Himself. Then we will not be as children any longer. Children are like boats thrown up and down on big waves. They are blown with the wind. False teaching is like the wind... We are to grow up and be more like Christ. He is the leader of the church.


  Big kids don't do certain things that little kids do, because they have matured and grown out of them. Big kids shouldn't scream and stomp in the middle of the grocery store or cry when they don't get their way because they're expected to have grown out of that sort of behavior. Likewise, when one matures in the faith, he naturally assumes that there are certain things he shouldn't do. He expects himself not to lie, cheat, steal or ever ever get angry, and when he does, he gets frustrated with himself because he expects himself to have grown out of this. 


But there is news: Progress ≠ Perfection.


  As we grow up in the faith, we still have bad days. We still get mad at people, lie to save our butts in a moment of desperation, and do other assorted things which, among the Christian community, it is agreed should probably not be done. And we get frustrated with ourselves because we feel we should have grown up out of that sort of behavior. Perhaps God's been working on a specific issue within us and we feel like we shouldn't act on the issue anymore because we've been such good Christians working on our sin. We feel like we've matured enough, and shouldn't act like children in the faith anymore. And then one day, someone does something that irritates us so much that we explode. We get angry, maybe we say some things that shouldn't be said or do some things that shouldn't be done.
  Afterwards, we're disappointed with ourselves and we feel like we haven't made any progress at all. We feel like we're still children in the faith and we're such terrible Christians and we'll never make any progress because we're unfixable.
  But the mere knowledge that we've done something wrong and are able to identify what it is speaks volumes. Whereas before we were in sin and perfectly comfortably with it, now when we sin, we feel bad. We feel as though we've done something wrong. This is a huge step in our walk. And messing up doesn't doom us to be failed Christians forever and ever, without hope of redemption or success in any aspect of life. 


⁹ If we tell Him our sins, He is faithful and we can depend on Him to forgive us of our sins. He will make our lives clean from all sin.


Clean from all sin. When we mess up, so long as we repent and ask for forgiveness, we can depend on Him to forgive us of our sins. The end.