Are you MEASURING up as a Christian?

Many believers have said, “I just can't live the Christian life, I try to reach a certain expectation and I succeed for a time and then I fall flat on my face again. It seems that God is a God of expectations that demands perfection.”

In one way or another most Christians are trapped in this endless cycle of attaining and failing to maintain or perform up to the expectations they have been told that God expects of them. Far to often these expectations are set because leaders are distorting such scriptures that teach we should "be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect."

In Mark 10:17, we encounter a scene that shows us the futility of expectations. We find out that God is not a God of expectations! This young man had always been able to defined himself by his being able to measure up to the standards expected of him. He was successful when measured with the measuring stick of talent and performance. It was a scale he did well on, and one he also relied on to define him and value him. It is sad, but the religious organizations of today base how good of a Christian and member of their particular brand of “church” on the expectations, or measuring up criteria.

When the rich young ruler encounters Jesus, he comes to face to face with his worse imaginable nightmare...a challenge to live without the measuring stick. In fact, when Jesus tells him to sell everything he has and follow, He is asking him to throw down the very measure he has used to know his value in the world. When the rich man first asks what he has to do to get eternal life, he already knows the answer. He knows that he has measured well against that measuring stick. He is banking on the obvious answer to the question; "do all the right things and it will make you a good person".

He shows his cards when he approaches Jesus with the label 'good', because all of life was about good and bad to him. It was about better than and less than, and he had learned to know his value and worth by always falling on the better than side of the equation. He comes to Jesus wanting to know how he can earn eternal life. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus kicks the performance crutch out from under him. The man who has always won, who has always finished at the top of his class suddenly discovers that performance isn't what it is all about. "You still lack one thing - get rid of the measuring stick."

"At this, the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth." Would it have been so horrible to sell everything and give to the poor and follow Jesus? It doesn't make sense unless you realize that this young guy really wasn't interested in life eternal. He was looking for performance points from the God of the universe. All he knew was performing perfectly. He didn't really want what he said he wanted. He wanted God to tell him he was already there. He wanted Jesus to tell him what he deeply longed to hear - that he really was a good man. And it wasn't that Jesus wouldn't say that. It was that Jesus was telling him between the lines that goodness doesn't come from expectations that we measure up to. It comes from a relationship journey with God, where He is not judging us by our failure to live up to expectations but loving us into a deeper relationship with Him and trust in Him so that His life is outlived through us.

God isn't interested in you getting perfect. He knows you can't ever get there, so He made a way for you to be perfect that was everything about Him, and nothing about you. He made that way through Jesus. And the only thing He wants from you is relationship. So stop trying to earn what He has already provided. He doesn't need you to get it together. He needs you to get together with Him. That's it. Any teaching that has even subtle implications that you need to do something better is hogwash, plain and simple.
God does not have any expectations set for you to attain, therefore He is not judging you when you fail to meet the perceived expectations that religious rules and regulation christianity has set for you.

Stop pursuing standards of perfection, and start living in the love of Jesus by living as a loved child of God. As you travel on a relational journey with Him the more like Him you will become. If you fail He is not there to beat you about the head with a bat and put a guilt trip on you. He is there to accept you back as the father accepted his wayward son from the pigpen, with love and forgiveness.

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