Decisions, decisions....

Watching the Olympics is often glorious and heartbreaking at the same time. You can't deny sharing the joy of Michael Phelps swimming to gold after gold, or Nastia Liukin flipping to an all around victory. On the other hand we share the dismay in Cowell and Tarantino's 4th place in synchronized diving,  or the U.S. gymnastics 2nd place team finish. All that hard work, just to come up short. I wonder what thoughts and questions circle around your head when you've worked so hard, only to be disappointed by your own performance. Do they ask, "Did I train enough?""Did I try enough?" "Did I have the strength of body and mind to pull this thing to victory?". Quite honestly, I can say that I wonder the same thing when I hear that folks depend on their own decision when it comes to faith. I know that for me, the life I live fluctuates between the feelings that I am standing on the Gold Medal platform in victory and watching from the sidelines in defeat. Life for me is full of questions that really never have answers, particularly when their directed at my own effort and striving. I'm always left wanting and wishing I had done more. That's the beauty in the gospel of Jesus' cross. In the cross there is no decision, save the one of a loving God for us. When we attach our human effort to accepting His sacrifice, that makes it's effectiveness contingent on our choice.  It's not. The sacrifice of God in Jesus for us is to free us from a will that has been bound to sin, to decisions and questions that are inherently flawed, since they rise from our own desires. Friends, rely not in your own decisions and choices. Have faith not that you have done all the right things, but that God alone has done the one right thing - given you Jesus in order that He may call you His own once again. God knows your name, not because you know His - but because of Jesus alone!