Encounter: Out of our 730 Challenge reading selections this week, focus in and read Deuteronomy Chapter 4 and Romans 3:21-31 & 5:1-2. Take time to underline any words or phrases that resonate or seem to be emphasized over and over.
Reflect: With the themes of law and grace, how are these passages different and how are they alike? How are they connected?
An article in USA Today reports that the American Psychological Association has published new research exploring the rise of perfectionism in young people. Compared to prior generations, today's college students are harder on themselves, more demanding of others, and report higher levels of social pressure to be perfect.
The study examined over 40,000 college students who took a special survey between 1989 and 2016. The more recent students scored higher in all three forms of perfectionism. Between 1989 and 2016, the scores for socially prescribed perfectionism—or perceiving the excessive expectations of others—increased by 33 percent. Other-oriented expectations—putting unrealistic expectations on others—went up 16 percent, and self-oriented perfectionism—our irrational desire to be perfect—increased 10 percent.
One of the lead researchers concluded, "Today's young people are competing with each other in order to meet societal pressures to succeed and they feel that perfectionism is necessary in order to feel safe, socially connected and of worth." Unfortunately, perfectionism can lead to anxiety, clinical depression, anorexia, and other health issues.
The Law is a lot like perfectionism. Eventually it will only show you how you don’t measure up or cause you to boast in pride and we all know where that leads. Reading through the different laws and regulations in Numbers and Deuteronomy can bring us to a place of feeling exhausted. Honestly, keeping the law is a lot of work. The only hope is living out of a heart changed by the Spirit, because a person with a changed heart receives praise from God not from people.
Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. (Rom. 5:1-2)
Living a life of faith means taking a break from the work of trying to reach perfection on our own and instead keeping company with God allowing the life of Christ Jesus to set us free from the law of sin and death and be filled with the life of Jesus through the Spirit. (Rom. 8:2) Seems to me this is our real Labor Day.
Keeping Company with God,
Pastor T
Spiritual Practice: What would it look like for you to live the unforced rhythms of grace. Where are you trying to attain perfection on your own instead of through the life of Christ within you. Explore a spiritual discipline where you experience a sense of God’s grace and presence. A place to sit in the gaze of God’s love for you.
Gather: Share what it means to you to live under the power of Christ in you rather than the power of sin and what you discovered in your spiritual practice exercise.
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