Live Like You Mean It ... “God’s Glorious Standard” Means We Need Jesus More Than Ever

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins,” (Romans 3:23-4).

Typically, I don’t have any trouble coming up with a direction when it comes to writing a column. There is usually enough going on that’s begging for some kind of commentary. But today I got stuck, so I went to www. biblegateway.com and read the “verse of the day.”

I was immediately taken with the New Living Translation’s take on the familiar words. “God’s glorious standard” reminds me that I was not created in a random way but that God has so much for me in terms of hope and promise and expectation, such an investment of love.

Like our own children. Good grief, how Rebekah and I talked and dreamed and peered into the future when Andrew and then Naomi were infants. We are fallible, and inconsistent, and limited in imagination, and saddled with narrow vision. We are rooted in the status quo and hobbled by our own expectations. God, though, gifted our children with so much more possibility than our ideas, and over the years they both broke free from our plan, and all we could do was to stand aside and watch — amazed, stunned and frightened sometimes — as they became more who God purposed and made their own way into the world.

So, God watches me, watches you, and it is not our parents’ hopes and dreams but “God’s glorious standard” that counts. And so of course I need Jesus; our children do

By Derek Maul

too. We all need that grace that makes us “right in [God’s] sight.”

Easter is our reference point because it was through victory over death that Jesus “freed us from the penalty for our sins.” It’s a good thing we are still young enough to continue to grow, and to fall short, and to trust Jesus, and — in every way — to be made right in God’s sight.

Derek Maul has written for many news outlets, including the Tampa Tribune, Te United Methodist News Service, All Pro Dad, FOCUS Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, Te Christian Science Monitor, Presbyterians Today, Guideposts, Chicken Soup for the Soul and many other publications. Read Derek Maul’s daily blog posts at www.derekmaul.wordpress.com