It is possible to believe in something and still fail to live up to it.
~Dr. Wilson on “House, M.D.”
I was watching an old House rerun on TV the other day, and it was back when they were doing a whole run of shows challenging House’s atheistic/gnostic views with patients who were deeply religious. It was really well done and interesting (surprise, surprise!), I must say. This particular quote comes from House being all high and mighty because someone who was a borderline-crazy religious person was a big fat sinner… and Wilson responds with this wisdom (to which House has zero reply).
What beliefs do you fail to uphold every single day? What standards have you set for yourself based on your morals and values… which ones have you not quite reached?
The Lord, who sees in secret, knows how much I’ve failed. It’s a lot. More than anyone could/should know.
How many times do we say one thing with our lips and another with our lives? Just like the hypocrites that Jesus criticizes over and over again!
I catch myself doing this all the time!
And yet… the miracle of it all… is that HE LOVES US ANYWAY and still wants us to be his disciples!
Look at what Paul, one of the top 5 apostles, felt:
Romans 7:15-21
What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
Talk about using the weak to show up the strong! Sheesh.
1 Cor 1:26-31
Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.
Not many of you were wise by human standards,
not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written,
“Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”
I can only hope that, little by little, I can gain all these things in order to be ABLE to boast in the Lord! But first, I have to get rid of the tendency to boast about myself. And try to follow what I believe, practice what I preach and all.
And walk the walk that I talk.
By Reader