Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? — Gal 3:5 The Message

I grew up believing that pleasing God is the ultimate goal of every Christian; that it should be the be-all-end-all of our existence. Church, and my parents, taught me that I am here on this planet to give glory to God. And the only way to do that is to do whatever it takes to please God. The problem is I cannot do anything to please God no matter how much I strive. Whatever I do falls short. Believe me, I’ve tried. I tried my whole life.

I grew up in church. As the daughter of a minister my life was a daily Sunday School and I was expected to be the best student. Don’t get me wrong, I relished the role. I’ve always liked being the teacher’s pet. So I took everything I heard, quickly applied it to my life and tried hard to be that perfectly pleasing "living sacrifice" for God. I believed that I must work hard to be holy and not sin and that when I do sin, even as a follower of Jesus, it hurt Hims and separates us and that it is up to me to make it right and get our relationship back on track. But I always completely failed.

If I heard that same thing from a non-Christian — that she couldn’t stop sinning or be holy — I’d immediately comfort her by pointing out that scripture clearly says you cannot do it; you cannot cleanse yourself of sin nor keep yourself from sinning. And I believe that is true for everyone who does not have a relationship with Jesus. But for all the good teaching I got as a child, I still came up with a screwy idea that Christians are somehow different and those scriptures don’t apply. I was convinced that once I was "saved" I now had the power and responsibility to keep (or save) myself from sinning, to make myself holy and pleasing to God. Turns out I don’t and I can’t. And this is where trusting God comes in.

This Easter God began reshaping the way I look at the cross, at redemption, forgiveness and grace. That day — and every day since — Jesus insisted that His death and resurrection, forgiveness, grace and redemption were meant specifically for me, and not just for everyone who believed — a surprisingly hard idea for me. I’d  been trained since birth to "think about others" and to "consider others as better than" myself. That translated to me as: godly and holy things like salvation and redemption are not personal, not personally inscribed with my name on it. Rather, they are for everyone in general. But it turns out that’s not true. It is personal. It is specific. It really does have my name on it. Here’s the truth:

Every last one of our names has been personally carved into the cross by Jesus Himself and if we were to look closely at it we would see our own name — Larry, Marti, Joe, Niza, Dorcas, Emily, Art, Katherine, KatRose, Lu…. — carved into the wood and covered in blood, forever marking our redemption.

But apparently Jesus didn’t stop with a one-time redemption; it wasn’t a once-only intervention of sin that leaves us, His adopted children and followers, now on our own to solve our sin problems. That personal specific sin-intervention seems to also apply to every sin I have done and will do as a follower of Christ. Many times since Easter I’ve brought my sin to God, broken and remorseful that "I did it once again," fully expecting Him to be disappointed or annoyed that I haven’t yet gotten it right. Only to have Him gently, lovingly declare, "that’s what the cross is for. Don’t worry about it anymore. But maybe next time you come talk to me when temptation hits? We could fight it together." What a completely foreign idea.

Part Two can be found here.