You Know That You Know

Because knowing the right thing to do is not enough, and it does not work. Knowing the steps to take, the procedures to follow and the end result. Having the goal in mind and the picture of what it should all look like. To be right, to have the right answers, to know what and how and when to act with life and in life.

It is all not enough.

For when you stumble and you miss a step. When you forget the protocol and you do it wrong. When you make a mistake and don’t get it right. Then what? When the 'what it should look like' never turns out quite like what you thought it would, or should.

Then what?

Because you know, the right thing to do is never really enough to be right. It is not. And you know it.

But still, you stick it out. You try again and forge ahead. With more determination this time. With more purpose than last time. With more grit between your teeth. You try again, trying real hard to believe it is the right and good thing to do.

Until it doesn't work. Again.

And you fall into despair, again.

Because you know, you deep-down know, it is all really never enough. It never will be.

But there. Yes, there! Amen! There, where you deep-down know, is where life begins. If you let it. When you come to know your great need, your great poverty, and your great despair. When you come to deep-down know you cannot do the right thing to be made right. There, your great need to do it right will lead you to your great Saviour, Who has done it all right, already. He has made a way for you to be right, already!

Only there does doing the right thing become all about stopping to let the righteousness of Christ in. And in that is life. Pure and simple. Life. You, being made right in Christ, the only One Who is right. That is life indeed - freedom in Christ (John 8:36)!

Because in your poverty, you know the greatness of your Saviour. In your despair, you know the faithfulness of your Father. In your inadequacy, you know the complete acceptance of your Christ, of the Christ, Who died and rose again, to give life to anyone who would believe. Anyone. Even you. Especially you who knows your need, your need for life, your need for Christ. Indeed!

And there, life rises from within you, as an overflow, as a pouring over of grace, over and over and all around you, a pure gift from God Almighty. And you know that you know. You know that you know Christ. For you know that you know Christ is all.

For from you flows life, His life, your made-right life!

****

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" - Romans 3:21-24