Faithbase

Hey faith-based family and friends, blessings to you today. Hey, today I would like to start a series called metrics and by metrics I'm meaning like units of measurement. When I moved to Costa Rica I was confused a lot, well I still get confused a lot, but I was confused about how they would describe distances and weight and the prices of things. They always talked in kilometers and I'm from the US so I thought of miles and for example the money, isn't this strange? Each each bill is a different color but they're actually different sizes based on how much they're worth. You can see that this one that's 5,000 is bigger than the 1,000 and I had to get used to these metrics, but I want to say that I think that maybe we should revisit metrics in terms of Christians, church, maturity, success, and so I'm gonna hit different metrics one at a time and the first one I want to hit is a metric for spiritual maturity. There are a lot of metrics obviously. We quickly go to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians which is a very important metric that the Holy Spirit's working in us and it's a byproduct that we're in relationship with them, but one metric that I think that we miss sometimes and that's seeing our sin more clearly. You see in Paul's letters, Paul's life really, if you put his letters in chronological order we see a maturing happening and it's really interesting. In 1st Corinthians chapter 15, Paul says this, he says, "...of the Apostles I am the least." Now the Apostles, that's a small number of people. An Apostle is someone who has seen the risen Lord and received a direct commission from him. It's a small number. Well later, let's see, in Ephesians 3, Paul says, "...of the saints I am the least." Well the saints, that means believers, those who profess Christ as their Savior. That's a larger number. He's saying of the saints, he's the least. Notice how the number is getting bigger. And then finally in 1st Timothy chapter 1, he says this, this is so astounding, remember he's inspired by the Holy Spirit so it's not false humility, but he says, "...of sinners I am the worst." Isn't this incredible? This is Paul, the one who would touch handkerchiefs and napkins and it would heal people. This is incredible. So what I'm getting at is that part of the spiritual maturing process, one of the metrics, is that we begin to see our sin more clearly. This is not a comfortable process, is it, seeing our sin? Very messy. It's not to create any sense of self-loathing, that would not honor the Lord at all, but what it does is it creates gratitude for grace. It creates humility and it creates just most of all love. And so I want to encourage us as we process our spiritual journey and maturing, are we becoming more aware of things that dishonored the Lord in our thought and our word and our action or even even sins of omission, things that we're failing to do. Because I know the Lord's inviting us into greater maturity and greater intimacy. It's not, as we grow in our awareness of sin, it's not about shame and guilt. Shame and guilt are not from the Lord. Conviction is actually a gift from the Holy Spirit, because the Lord wants what's best for us, but shame and guilt are not from Him. But my question is, do we realize that part of our metric for spiritual maturity is a greater awareness of our need for the Savior, a greater awareness of sin in us? And I say that so that we can confess, so we'll be more effective for the kingdom, but mostly just so that we can be in greater awe of the beauty and the greatness of His love and His grace. Blessings to you today.