I know today's post title is as convoluted as the title of a 60's country song, but I hope you hear it loud and clear: You're more important than you know, and not as important as you think you are.
Let's start with the last part of that statement first. I can't help but notice on Social Media how loud we all are. We complain constantly, and we're absolutely in love with ourselves. We complain because we love to hear our own opinions. We complain without offering any solutions on how to fix our complaint, because we're too important to fix our own problems, therefore someone else MUST be the evil force causing my discomfort. But here's the problem: we're not as important as we imagine ourselves to be. The people we complain to (and about), are not dwelling on us, but typically have a larger group of people to manage, and are looking to the health of the whole, as opposed to the individual. We've gotten so used to complaining, and complaining, and complaining, and blocking anyone who opposes us, we can't imagine that there is any opinion that exists that is more important than our own. This thinking diminishes us. We become gods in our own mind, and social media is our kingdom. We don't care who we seek to destroy, and we become more twisted, bitter, and angry in the process. Is this how we want to live? Now to the first part of the point: Christ died for you. Yes, you. And me. Selfish, self-important, and self-entitled as we are. Christ died for the ungodly, the unjust, the self-serving, and, spoiler alert, that's all of us. He died knowing many of us would never love Him that way in response. He died knowing that we would take His gift in directions He never desired them to go. He died knowing we would reject Him with our actions while speaking His praise with our lips. Why? Because He loves us, so in the very same thought of not being as important as we think, we are infinitely more important than we imagine ourselves to be, not because of our intrinsic value, but because God shed His blood to heal us of our iniquities, and to make us new. This knowledge should be too wonderful for us to bear, and cause us to stop and change everything. Yet I must ask this question: will it? Romans 6: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
