Your salvation is in Christ.
Your right standing with God is in Christ.
Your total and complete acceptance is in Christ. 
Your merit is all in Christ.
Your wholeness is in Christ.
So what does this mean to you?
It means your imperfect obedience, lukewarm love, and stumblings are swallowed up in Christ’s perfect life of obedience.
Remember, his perfect record is yours.
God loves you because of him.
As believers, our default position is now the full and complete life of Jesus.
That’s pure joy!
There is a lot of advice out there for singles who are lonely and wish they had a spouse.
Some of it goes like this:
1. stop wanting to be married and then God will give it to you
2. devote yourself to God and you’ll be so exhausted doing kingdom work you won’t have time to think about it
3. lower your expectations of a perfect spouse
Have you noticed what’s missing?
The gospel.
How does the gospel apply to singleness?
In every way.
1. Jesus was single. He understands.
2. You are not alone. Jesus is closer to you than a husband.
3. You’re really not single. Romans 7:4 says you are married to Christ.
One day, in the resurrection, there will be the marriage supper of the Lamb. Now that’s a destination wedding if there ever was one!
And you are the bride!
So if you think you’re missing out, you’re not.
You will have a wedding. And a party that far exceeds your wildest imagination!
In continuing with the theme of God’s kingdom, it is here that we can live status-free.
The world jostles for position all the time. It starts in the family. There’s a favorite aunt, or a special cousin. There are the relatives nobody likes, and there are others that everybody adores.
Then there’s school. The cool, the popular, and the geeks.
College is no better. Ivy league vs. state universities. Private vs. community colleges. Yale sounds better than Berkeley, Stanford more elitist than Cal State.
Once you get into the work force, you quickly slam into the status levels there. It’s called management and labor. The two great divides.
The only place on earth where this isn’t true is in God’s kingdom. There we have one head – Jesus. The rest of us are all brothers and sisters. We came into the kingdom on the same playing field – through the cross. We stay in the kingdom through no merit of our own, but solely on the merits of Christ and what he has done for us.
There is no room for posturing, snobbery, or reputation.
But there is plenty of room for compassion, love and service to one another.
Next time you’re tempted to elevate or belittle yourself – both are sin – remember that your life is defined by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
He’s the ruler of the universe. You can rub shoulders with him!
Have you noticed an increase of motivational speakers lately?
The more the world unravels the more upbeat these guys seem to be. (Most are men. I think women know better.)
You know the type.
They challenge you to make your life count.
They tell you to change the world and make an impact for God. And then give you a zillion pointers. They call it a blog.
What about the super-godly who want to die with their boots on? (I don’t have boots. What does that say about me?)
How do you respond to these calls for excellence?
I’m a cynic at heart so my reaction is: Oh yea? Show me what you’ve done lately
to stop the rotation of the planet.
I hate these guys.
They’re appealing to the flesh. My flesh. Of course I want to be great and important. Who doesn’t?
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for excellence. I ripped a new play apart last week because it could have been so much better. (And I wished I had written it.)
I’m all for success. My success. I really don’t care about anybody else’s except maybe my children’s.
I know that these things in themselves aren’t bad. There’s a lot of mediocrity that passes for excellence, like that play, and so a slap on the head is a good thing.
But the question is: is this where God is calling us?
I know he tells us to be perfect as he is perfect, and that without holiness we will never get to hang out together. That’s quite a standard to live up to. It pales in comparison to the motivational mantras of becoming rock stars.
However, I’m not sure, given all the right resources, that we can even live up to being mediocre.
Even mediocrity has its standards that are hard to achieve.
I have a motivational poster in my office that says: “Ineptitude: If you can’t learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.”
I’m learning to follow Jesus poorly. I don’t get it right. My motivations are wrapped in me, myself and I – my favorite trinity.
I need a Savior. That’s why Jesus died for me.
My rock-star status doesn’t exist. It’s a lie.
My real status is bound up with his. God captured me, subdued me, and extracted me from the world and put me into the kingdom of his Son. Don’t look at me like that. It was God’s idea.
So maybe the challenge is not so much what I can do for God that is so great, but what God has already done for me which is enormous. I need to focus on that.
And then tell somebody else so he can wipe the sweat off his brow and know he’s not alone.
Messy Christians 