You are accepted by God

One of the worst mistakes I have made as a parent is disciplining with a hard heart instead of a heavy heart. My fears of being exposed as an inadequate person pushed me to in turn push my kids toward that ever-elusive "perfect" behavior: perfect room, perfect appearance, perfect manners, perfect performance. When the inevitable happened, and one of us came up short, all of us suffered for it. As a matter of fact, my husband recently shared with me that when I lose my temper and start yelling, he wants to shrink up and hide. (This is a man who works in a Level II trauma center and sees chaos and tragedy all day long.) I often find that I have no tolerance for failure, whether it is my own or someone else’s, because I can’t accept coming up short in someone’s eyes. Therein lies the problem.
It’s GOD’s eyes in which we need to evaluate ourselves. The loving gaze of our heavenly Father no longer sees us for our sins, but for whom we are in Christ Jesus. Let’s look at a passage from Colossians 2 to better understand God’s grace and our position in it.
" And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." (Colossians 2:13-14)
Maybe, however, you’re like me, and have felt the need to keep earning His love or acceptance as we go. Yes, we know we’re saved, and that God did love us enough to die for us, but don’t we wonder how He feels about us when we fall–sometimes over and over–into sin? This is where shame comes in: a feeling of utter inadequacy and humiliation, the fear of rejection and loss of hope. We can’t believe that God’s favor for us has nothing to do with our failures–past, present, or future. Even Paul, one of the greatest apostles and the author of half of the New Testament, grappled with his sinful struggles. In Romans 7, he acknowledges that though he wants to do good, he can’t seem to find how.
"I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 7:21-24)
Paul knew that although he would still sin, his position in God’s eyes did not change, as he went on to state in the beginning of Romans 8:
"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:1-2)

Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 that He came to fulfill the law. This meant that He would have to continually satisfy each and every one of the 613 Mosaic laws found in the Old Testament. Since Jesus lived approximately 33 years on this earth, this equaled about 12,061 days of perfect holiness. Perfect love, perfect obedience, perfect sacrifice. He rose to every task God gave Him, keeping a pure mind and motive and overcoming every temptation. When He uttered His last words on the cross, "It is finished," this wasn’t just a summation of His time here on earth. This was a proclamation to all creation that the righteous requirement had forever been met, and our lack of obedience no longer needed to separate us from God. We must only believe in Him, accepting His death on the cross as payment for our sins, and we are saved for all eternity.
In the meantime, we don’t have to be perfect; we don’t even have to be good enough. And we should all stop trying. Not that we want to continue to sin, because, as it says in I John 3:5, if the hope of our salvation is in Him, we want to purify ourselves just as He is pure. But we can never attach the standard of our goodness, or lack of it, to our salvation or our standing in God’s kingdom. Galatians 2:21 says, "I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain." Trying to earn my way aside from God’s grace would be like trying to take filthy rags, which is how the Bible says God views our best efforts in comparison to Christ’s, and make a rope that would stretch from here to heaven. It’s impossible! (And a complete waste of time!) Instead, let’s all just live in joy and thanks for the Son Who has made us free, free indeed. Hallelujah!