The Way of Salvation

Everything We Do Is Trash

I’ve always felt like I have a lot to prove. Like I was the most underdog underdog. I would show up early, stay late, and work harder than anyone else. When I was in Tae Kwon Do, if the studio was open, I was there. When I’d lift, I always did an extra set. I took extra shifts at work and did extra credit I didn’t really need. As I got older I would show up early to work, work through lunch, and stay after everyone else went home. I recieved raises, awards, everything that made it look like I was winning. No matter what I did, though, there was always someone faster, stronger, smarter or just plain better than me. This led to an immobilizing, crippling thought that I battle every day...”I’ll never be good enough.”

Most, if not all of us, have felt this way at one point or another. We feel like there is something at the core of who we are that is lacking. Or maybe it’s the opposite for you. You believe that you are crushing it! To you I ask, “What happens when everything comes crashing down?” Truth is both of these create a little something called “insecurity” in all of us. We take this insecurity, this feeling of lack, into every situation and relationship in our lives. Even into our relationship with God.

But God doesn’t put a lot of things between us and Him. In fact, He gets really upset with other people make it hard for us to come to Him.

Philippians 3:2–4 NLT

Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more!

These people were determined to add things to a relationship with Jesus. It’s easy for some of us to look at these people and say “Why would you do this?” But if we are honest with ourselves, we do this all the time. We believe we have to meet some unreal expectation. Or worse! We put that expectation on other people. Paul was the most devout Jew, but he considered it all trash compared to knowing Jesus

Philippians 3:7–11 NLT

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

You don’t have to be perfect. God isn’t expecting that from you. All you need is faith. Faith that Jesus is who He says and that He did what the Bible says.