This week’s devotions are based on Week 6 of Cross Examined: Don’t you fear God? (LISTEN HERE)
Perfection vs. Imperfection
Various shows today highlight a competition where perfection in a certain area is desired and celebrated. My daughter used to love to watch “Cupcake Wars.” Presented with a challenge and theme, contestants were then under the clock to bake the perfect cupcake. It was often times brutal when the judges would critique the dryness of the cake or the lack of creamy texture of the frosting.
The winner had the perfect cupcake…texture, taste, and presentation.
If I were to try to compete with this with my 2 eggs and a box of Duncan Hines cake mix, I don’t think I would measure up in any way. My feeble attempt at cupcake perfection would fall way short of what the show was looking for.
Perhaps a silly example, but in various areas of life we can readily see “perfection” or a very high quality of good or service. We know when something is made well and something else breaks right away. We know when something tastes delicious and when something tastes 10 days old.
Why is it so hard to acknowledge this in our spiritual life?
Why do we like to dismiss our imperfection and readily point out others imperfection?
Why do we find it easy to lower God’s standard of perfection to meet our feeble attempt at perfection?
The second criminal on the cross recognized a large disparity between himself and the Man on the center cross. The first seemed to forget he was under a sentence of death for deeds he HAD committed. He seemed perfectly comfortable dismissing his sin to hurl insults at Jesus. He had no problem ignoring the reality that he was a sinner hanging next to an innocent man.
The second criminal didn’t.
Luke 23:40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
The second criminal recognized the perfection of Jesus. Somehow from what he heard from his jail cell and experienced on the journey to Golgotha or some other time in his life, he heard something about Jesus. Being a hardened criminal guilty of death was not what he experienced. Jesus was being crucified as a guilty sinner, but yet he was the perfect Son of God.
He had done nothing wrong.
Can we recognize this too?
Maybe it is easy for us in our minds to acknowledge that Jesus is perfect. What is harder is to acknowledge that we are NOT perfect. We naturally push against charges of being sinful by excusing or justifying what we did or comparing ourselves to others or just making up a belief that God won’t punish sin.
That’s not the case.
Romans 3:22-23 There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,…
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death,…
The second criminal sets a great example for us.
Acknowledge our sin. Understand the consequences of it.
But then turn in faith to the one who “has done nothing wrong.”
Because what was happening on the middle cross was not only for the second criminal, but for you and for me. The one who had done nothing wrong was going to die for all of us who have done lots of things wrong.
2 Corinthians 5:20-21 We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Apply: What makes it hard for you to acknowledge your sin and the consequences they deserve?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for taking my place as a sinner on the cross even though you were perfect, having done nothing wrong. AMEN.