Stock Settings (God Over Our Mistakes) – March 16, 2022 (75/365)

Anyone who claims to have never made a mistake has made at least one, by making that claim.

I was walking home yesterday, without any headphones, therefore without any music or podcasts. Just me, walking, with my thoughts. It couldn’t be helped that a good part of those thoughts were the mistakes I made in the past. Mistakes, which to this day I cringe at. The pain dealt to me and/or the pain I dealt to others felt so fresh with every cringe-worthy memory, and I just had to pray out loud as I walked, just thanking God for being so faithful to me even in those times when and where I felt the worst. I couldn’t help it, it’s in these moments that you feel so thankful that Christ did what He did, and the impact of His finished work is absolute.

The Truth of Christ’s mercy is infinitely superior to the fact of my mistakes – the ones I’ve made, the ones I’m currently involved or associated with, and the ones I have yet to make. The pain of some the experiences still lingers. The regrets of the choice I’ve made, the choices I failed to make or follow through on, or the choices where was off in timing and/or execution – all this still hounds me. Most of all, the frustration I feel for not having done anything about some of the trouble that’s happened to me or the issues I’ve created myself – that hurts me too…

…But now I choose to write once again, I choose to bring these things into remembrance, with the purpose of glorifying the grace and truth of Christ and His finished work. What seems to be happening in my mind is that the bad memories come back off and on, but the default mindset is Christ. I don’t know if that came off pretty vague but what I’m saying is what Paul said to the Corinthians (at least as far as I remember) – we have the mind of Christ.

And when we say we have the mind of Christ, are we to make any sort of effort to ‘think like Christ’ according to our perceptions? No, I believe that if we truly believe we have the mind of Christ, and if we truly believe we are new Creations in Christ, and if we truly believe that in Christ we live, and move, and have our being, then it should be true on its own, without our efforts to prove it. It is seen in our thoughts, words, and actions, independent of how passionate we are in trying to show the world that we have it.

Going back to mistakes, well, in my case I would forgive myself for beating myself up to a point that I feel ‘punished’ for the cringe I felt and/or made other people feel… but I would do well to keep moving after recognizing this pain, knowing that in this torment, Christ, who is our Peace, holds us even tighter.

We have a perspective of peace present to us no matter what happens to us, or no matter what we make happen. And this is no peace according to how the world would see it or define it – this is an infinite, borderless, and timeless peace which goes beyond all of our own (independent) understanding and traces of ‘wisdom’… and actually, it’s a living Peace just as Christ is our literal Wisdom, not just a source – Christ, who is Peace, Wisdom and Life for us would have us see these mistakes we’ve made from a perspective of learning… and the main lesson seems to always be that His love for us endures forever.

I don’t know why I chose to write about this today. Maybe it’s because I’ve been coming from flowing. From learning. From knowledge. We’re probably looking a little deeper into what’s true for each and every believer, what is in common among all of us in the Body of Christ when it comes to identity – And that’s exactly what it is, Christ is what’s in common among all of us. Not denomination, not names, not church affiliations, not common experiences, not color, not language, skill, nationality or status.

Christ isn’t exclusive for the games we choose to play. He doesn’t favor those who play the wealth game over the status game. He doesn’t look down on those who are still struggling with their own identities, in favor of the confident folks who are just pretty good at projecting how ‘Alpha’ they are. The Body of Christ has Christ in common, no matter what big victories or huge failures we make.

Let me say that again – Christ is who we have, 100%. We all have Him intimately, and He has us. He lay down His body and shed His blood, thinking about all of us, and each and every one of us in particular. He’s the only one who can do that, take note. Some of us may have greater mistakes than others, or some of us may have committed more mistakes than most, but we shouldn’t set each other apart and segregate each other using our sin as a basis – For, no matter what we’ve done, it’s what Christ did for all of us that breaks down the barriers and holds us all together.

I’m elated because I haven’t even begun to jump into the daily Psalm and Proverb today. Today is special, in that in spite of all the stumbling I’ve been doing in these recent days, no matter how I go ahead and write up a storm about all I’ve done and all I want to do, and really, how hypocritical I must sound after all, God’s grace, peace, and truth still remains, only because of Christ and His finished work.

I am able to celebrate the faithfulness of our God even during these times, because it’s not up to me to be saved and stay saved, but it was all on the Son of God. It was nobody else but Christ was who loved us first and died for us first.

This is such a great blessing available for each and every one of us in the body of Christ – just to have confidence in God’s faithfulness, and relief that His wrath is not set upon us, rather, He seems to be a whole lot closer to us in tragedy and defeat… and, again, it’s all because of Jesus Christ.

We can keep going back to it. We can’t grow sick of it, because these are words that come out of the overflow of this new life that we have in Christ, who is Christ Himself – His blood flows through our veins, He is as close to us as He could ever be, knowing each and every one of us ever so intimately, knowing the best way to influence us… Christ is indeed so close to us that all of Him moves in all of our moves…

So glorious is our Savior, that we do not hide our afflictions, nor do we deny our mistakes… but praise God, for Christ is in all things, and He is seen and glorified more than the pain.

What a great perspective we now have in Christ.