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Standing in the Mess Up Line
And Jesus said, “Peter, do you love me?”
And he said to Him, “yes Lord, you know I love you.”
Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”
John 21:17
Recently, I had the opportunity to share at
a youth retreat. One particular
young man, who gave his life to Christ at one of the worship services, shared
with his youth leader and I that he would have made his decision much earlier in
his life, but he just didn’t think he could be “good enough.”
Having heard that statement all to often, I instinctively replied,
“Well, just get in the back of the mess up line.”
Of course, you know about the mess up line,
don’t you? Maybe you’ve been
there. One thing is for
sure…that’s where you’ll find me. I
stand a lot in the mess up line. I
try, sometimes hard and other times not so hard, not to have to go to
there…but it seems inevitable I end up there.
Of course, Satan would just as soon we not
know about the mess up line. He much
prefers making us think we have to be really, really good, maybe even perfect,
before we can follow Christ. He
quietly reminds us that maybe one day, when we do everything just exactly
right…when we don’t make mistakes and have fixed our faults and
failures…when our actions and our motives are beyond reproach, then we
might just decide to accept Christ.
Of course, you and I know that day never
comes, does it?
Well, at least we have plenty of company
when we get in the mess up line. Take
Peter…I see he spends almost as much time there as me.
One minute he’s listening to Jesus talk about love and forgiveness and
the next minute he cutting off somebody’s ear for confronting their little
group. Or how about the time he
denies He even knows Christ…and to a fourteen year- old girl of all people!
You know when Peter did that, he must have thought “well, that’s if
for me…forget all about that stuff about the keys to the kingdom…I wonder
what Jesus could have been thinking when he called me the rock…some rock!”
All he told his friends was, “I’m going
fishing.” Peter would go back to
being what he was before he ever met Jesus.
It was petty simple in Peter’s eyes…he just wasn’t good enough!
Yet out there in that boat, yet again, it
happened. Jesus came.
Once again the words, “throw you net to the other side of the
boat”…once again, the nets begin to break.
Once again, “I love you.”
Once again, “I forgive you.”
Once again another chance to feed His
sheep.
Yes, we Christians mess up…to be sure, we
will never be “good enough” to deserve what Christ did for us.
And so we go to the mess up line, but at the front of that line stand
Jesus, saying to us, “I forgive you…let’s try it again.”
Thanks be to God for the unconditional love
God has for us and the grace and forgiveness that is ours through Christ.
Have a great day!
IN Christ,
Billy
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