You Are More

So this wasn't the blog topic idea that I had for today at all. I have a bunch of different ideas for lessons, warnings, living...but then God laid something else on my heart. This blog topic is supposed to be more of an encouragement rather than a lesson. I have learned so much lately, but I've also made a lot of bad decisions in my life...and I've just felt like a failure.

I am a girl who doesn't have a ton of self control in certain areas. At all. I have to plead with God to give me the power to overcome temptation when it arises, and sometimes I still give in. I've been really...broken and discouraged because of that lately. I repent of my sin, and I know that God loves and forgives, but I still feel hopeless. I feel like all that I am is a failure.

But here's where God steps in and gives me the message that I need to hear. I was doing my homework and listening to K-LOVE at the same time, and my ears perked up when I heard the lyrics to a new song by Tenth Avenue North that I don't believe I've heard before. I won't post the whole song, but the lyrics that first got my attention went like this:

"Well she tries to believe it

That she's been given new life

But she can't shake the feeling

That it's not true tonight

She knows all the answers

And she's rehearsed all the lines

And so she'll try to do better

But then she's too weak to try..."

That really got my attention, because that's pretty much how I was feeling. I know God loves and forgives and He'll give me chance after chance to try again, (though that is not an excuse to sin) but I still felt like a failure. Then I listened to the chorus of the song.

“You are more than the choices that you've made,

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

You are more than the problems you create,

You've been remade.

'Cause this is not about what you've done,

But what's been done for you,

This is not about where you've been,

But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel,

But what He felt to forgive you,

And what He felt to make you loved..."

Wow. I have made so many mistakes in my life. I have made so many mistakes today. But here's the good new. I have a child of the King of Creation. I have been saved by the blood of the Lamb. Therefore; I am a new person. I am not my old, dead self.

I am more than all the bad choices I make.

I am more than all my the mistakes I have made in the past.

I am more than all of the problems I create for myself, for my parents, for others.

Why? Because who I am is not based on what I have done. If that were the case, I would be a liar, theif, wicked, lowly, sinner. But I'm not. Instead, because of what God did for me, I am a beautiful new creation. I am saved by grace and cleansed from my old self. That's so amazing to me! I'm not a failure because Christ gave His life up for me and took my failure and put it on Himself. You know what? That doesn't make me want to use that as an excuse to sin. Knowing that I'm not a failure because of Christ causes me to want to bring glory to Him in whatever I do-- which means being free from sin.

If you are having just a bad phase in your life, or have in your past, I hope this post brought encouragement to you. I hope that the song has reached you in a way that it has reached me. I pray that God has showed you how great His grace really is. And don't forget: if you are a child of the King, you are more than your failure.