Saturday, December 21, 2013

Standards based living

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:6 NIV)

I get to hang out with some pretty great teenagers. I see so many great things they do. They are fun, caring, smart, and driven to learn. They love to compare themselves to others. They compare themselves to great athletes, beautiful models, top scholars, and students with all the wealth. It drives me crazy. Their standards are so skewed by our Pop culture. Some ways I think our education system promotes that. Instead of measuring students on their own growth, we constantly measure them against others. We give awards based on those comparisons and it promotes more comparisons and much less work on improving each individual student. It's. OT always healthy to compare yourself to others. It may create an impossible goal, or more than likely it holds you back from being everything you can be. 

It doesn't change that much when they become adults. We all use others for comparison. If we choose correctly we can make ourselves look better than we are. Our standards are also skewed. Our only real measure is Jesus Christ. I fail miserably when I compare myself to the perfection of Christ. We are unclean. Our sins prevent us from being compared closely with Christ, pure goodness. I need to remember this, often. I am not as good as I think I am. If my standards are just other people I meet, those standards are way too low. My goals and dreams need to be set with Christ in mind. 

I know I fall short, but I am also confident in my future because Christ died for my sins and shortcomings. He has made me pure, up to his standards, by the cross. Praise God for sending his son for me! 

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