My life, my soul, my all.

Ready for another deep post? I am- I quite enjoy writing them...
{After I published this, I realized how long it is! I'll keep it shorter next time:)}

Recently, God’s been teaching me a lot about the Gospel and grace. It occurred to me that I had been subconsciously shoving the Gospel into the attic of my mind saying, “Sure, Jesus saved me, but I've heard that plenty. That's nothing special.” I think as a girl who has heard that story all of her life, it gets a little dull. But here’s the thing: the Gospel is everything. The Gospel is not only what I needed to understand to become a Christian, but it’s what I need every day to walk with God. Over and over and over again I need the reminder that Jesus paid it all. Not most, and then I need to go to church. Not some, and I need to follow the Bible. He absolutely, 100%, without a shadow of a doubt, paid for ALL my sins past, present, and future.

We, as sinful humans, deserve to die. We are no-good, dirty, wretched, lost sinners. And yet, he loves us.
So He was nailed to this cross.
Note that even Jesus wasn't exempt from pain.

My pain tolerance level is up to *here*. Rather, it is nonexistent. I cannot tolerate pain of any sort. Which is awful for me because I am a terribly clumsy person. Luckily, I think I've grown out of tripping down, or up, for that matter, the stairs. Anyway, this pain He endured is the part I can't get over. Who cares about the dying part, just make sure it doesn't hurt!

So He suffered through His death. He died and received nothing for it. We are the ones who get the benefit of his death-- we get to spend all of eternity with our Savior.

Personally, I wouldn't have done it. Besides the pain, the fact that I'm not God, and the dying part, I don't think humans would be all that exciting to hang with for eternity anyway.

Now, no matter what we do, we are still loved and forgiven if we have faith that He will do it.

Can I just stop for a second and just say how unbelievably and ridiculously exciting that is? But before it can become exciting, it’s a bit irritating at first. I mean, I try so hard to be nice to people and kind, and that doesn’t count for anything because Jesus did it all? Let me tell you, I can be really good if I try. I can follow almost everything in the Bible, but it’s okay if I mess up because then Jesus has grace to cover my back. And plus no one’s perfect, right? And, just between us, I think I’m way better than some other people I know...

Wrong!! I can’t even believe I sometimes think like that! Here’s the scary reality: we need to repent of even our best good deeds. If you look at the Pharisees, putting away the negative connotation that we have with them today, they were really good guys. They were the spiritual giants of their time; not only were they esteemed teachers, but they help political power and social status as well. Seriously, if anyone had it together, they did. But what did Jesus say to them? He said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” (Matthew 23:27) Yikes. That just goes to show you that even though we can make ourselves look really good on the outside, we can never fix the root of the problem; our hearts. Even our best deeds are tainted with pride and selfish desires because, “there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right…” (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

Ok, now back to the exciting part. This means that I can stop stressing that I don’t do everything right because it doesn’t matter what I do anyway! Jesus paid it all.

One particular day a while back, I was just tired. I was tired of trying so hard to be good at everything, particularly in school. I didn’t even know what to read in the Bible, so I flipped (virtually, that is-- I was on my iPad) to the Psalms. I happened to pull up a New American Standard Bible (I normally read NIV or ESV), and I read Psalm 46:10, the familiar verse that says in both the NIV and ESV, “Be still and know that I am God.” But that day, I knew it was absolutely no mistake that I had the NASB, because it said, “Cease striving and know that I am God.” Cease striving. Stop stressing. Stop being a perfectionist. Quit freaking out. You can't do it all; you're only human. That was precisely what I was doing, and is my tendency to do if I don’t trust in the Gospel and God’s grace every single day.

I am by no means anywhere close to perfect. But it is comforting to hear that no matter what I do, I am still loved and forgiven. I can make the mistakes that only I would make. I can say the stupid Megan stuff only I would say. I can fail a quiz, stumble through a speech, forget the answer and still be loved by Him.

I'll still try to be good- it's what Jesus has commanded from us. But He knows we'll mess up. He's already taken into account the errors; the slip ups are to be expected. But because he has given us the amazing gift of love, I owe it to Him to at least try. Actually, I owe Him more than just to try- I owe Him my whole life. I should spend every waking moment thanking Him, praising Him, serving Him. I don't, but I should. He deserves my everything. So I plan to give Him as much of me as my human, sinful self can...

I'll end with some lines in a hymn that describe His gift of love so perfectly.

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
Isaac Watts

"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."