Fallen Short

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

(Romans 3:23)

Almost everyone recognizes this verse. We teach it to our toddlers. Those of us who have grown up in the church, AWANAs, Sunday School, VBS... we know it by heart.

The teacher in me needs to step out of this indoctrination for a moment and ask a question. Does anyone see anything wrong with this quotation? Yes, Jimmy? That's right: it's not a complete sentence! There is no capital letter, which means there is something that comes before it, and there is no punctuation, which means that there is something that comes after it.

I challenge you, quick, before you grab your Bibles or skip on over to Biblegateway.com, what is the whole idea that this excerpt has been chopped out of the middle of? Don't know off of the top of your head? I didn't either. However, when I was assigned to look up 3:23 and read it, just 23, seeing it in the middle of a paragraph bothered me... so I read the whole thing.

Ladies and gentleman, a paragraph from Romans 3:

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. ²⁰ Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

²¹ But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, ²² even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, ²⁶   to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.²⁷ Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. ²⁸ Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

Now, I understand that the whole paragraph is awfully big for a toddler to memorize, but isn't "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" awfully heavy? Especially without the good part of the story? We don't let our kids go to movies with scary scenes, but they can memorize "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." and then follow it up with, "For the wages of sin is death;" (Romans 6:23a) (Yet another verse with suspicious punctuation warning all that we shortened because it was too big, and in turn made it too heavy by cutting out the wordy redemption part. In this one, we didn't just clip a verse out of a paragraph, we clipped a phrase out of a verse!) 

I remember not liking those verses for as long as I have memorized them. I still sigh and roll my eyes as I hear them being taught to the new generation of guilt ridden followers. They only made me feel dirty, shameful. What a horrible use of the Bible. In their entirety, they were supposed to make me feel blessed and treasured.

As adults, we mentally clip scriptures regularly as often as our subconscious feels the need to beat us down. We bask in our failures and forget the parts that glorify God's overcoming them. We need to be focusing on the whole story to be able to battle when our subconscious starts clipping the good parts out. After all, since when did any story lover stop in the middle of the chaos and trial portion of the book, and decide to move on to something else? Never. We cling to the story until the redemption, the rescue, the victory comes through.

We need the whole story.

Romans 6: 21-23 

 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 3:22-23

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  

Because we are all too aware of our sins and falling short. We know without needing to be told that we carry death within us. What we really need to memorize, carry with us, be reminded of regularly is the rest of the story.

"but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

"all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. "

As for toddlers memorizing things, if they are not mature enough to handle the size of: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." or all of Romans 3:22-23, then maybe we ought to reconsider whether they are mature enough to handle the weight of, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and "For the wages of sin is death"

It scares us, because rule followers are easier to raise and control, but I truly believe that in a room of adults, we'd rather be locked in with the grace believers than the rule followers. Maybe grace is what needs to be drilled in from toddlerhood, rather than fear and insufficiency.

Because what is the point of learning about death and failure, if we do not learn about life, grace, and the glory of God?

If we do not learn both parts, then by clipping verses and redemption ideas apart, this is an area in which we have truly fallen short for both ourselves and our toddlers.

My cat reminds me of God...

And if my cat had anything to do with the editing, this blog would end with the title.  Fortunately for my salvation, the title requires explanation. Let me start by explaining about my cat.

I trapped my cat as a 3 week old kitten from a long line of feral cats. She hated me.  She hated everyone, but I am particularly good with animals.  I have never had an animal hate me before. Fear? Yes, but hate? Never.  It took 2 months longer than the other kittens we caught to get her to tolerate my presence.  I finally managed this by locking her in the bathroom with me while I read a book for hours, ignoring her.  It took weeks of this before she made the decision to approach me.  Before that, every time I held her resulted in my bleeding, a lot.  It took a year before I could reach out to her without her scampering away, three years before she was willing to cuddle up in my lap.  She would not take food or treats that I offered her(not even hot dog bits, or cheese), I had to fill her food dish secretly.  As a kitten, she had a bacterial infection, and 3 different kinds of parasites at once, meaning she had to pinned down daily for medications. Later on, she got ringworm, and though she had begun to like me, I still had to wrestle her down to treat her every day.  Now, she loves me.

A year ago, I scooped this opinionated fluff ball up and cradled her in my arms to rub her belly. She closed her eyes and purred with satisfaction, and as I watched her tilt her head side to side, I caught sight of the healed over scars on my own arm. They were a few of the many scars this cat had inflicted on me as a scared and angry kitten.  I was surprised to see they were still there.  I was surprised to see them and then realize that I felt a deep love for the kitten that had put the scars there.  As I pondered this, I felt God murmur in my heart, I know the feeling.

You were living in a place of death, but I rescued you
You hated me, but I loved you
You hid from me, but I found you 
You ran away, but I pursued you
You lashed out against me, but I forgave you
You were diseased, but I healed you
You were anemic, but I gave you life
I gave you good things, but too often you turned away 
You were scared, but I waited for you trust
You wanted the wrong thing desperately, but I protected you
I know what is best for you, even when you don't like it
And when I see the scars I took on your behalf,  I do not feel regret. Only love.

And so as I stood there, and rubbed my cat's tummy, I gained a new appreciation for how great my God is.  Because of this when I look at my cat, I am reminded of God's great love for me.  I am reminded that God went to great efforts to love me, and that I was not incredibly lovable.  Even during those times when I vehemently tell him to take his love and shove it, he relentlessly loves me.

Much to my cat's disappointment, I do not consider her a god. She is simply a consistent reminder of God's great patience, mercy and love for me. 

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

                  1 John 4:18-19