Justice, Mercy and Grace

Here I am, again, feeling guilty while simultaneously trying to grasp onto the grace that Christ offers. I feel guilty because I make promises to myself and to God that I cannot seem to keep. One of those promises is that I will DAILY spend good, quality time with Him. That in my mind, consists of reading scripture, praying, journaling, being quiet... alot of DOING. I cannot seem to settle myself to just BEING with Him. I don't really understand what that means or should look like. And being the perfectionist that I am, if I cannot do it perfectly, I don't do it at all. Uggh! If I close my eyes, I get sleepy and then I feel guilty for falling asleep. If I journal, my hands start hurting, so I don't get very deep. If I pray out loud, I feel ridiculous, because I am self-conscious about the way I sound. If I pray silently, my mind wanders onto bills, chores, worries and other stuff. When I do an in-depth bible study, I come to points where I just can't take the intensity, so I quit. When I do 10 minute devotions, I feel like I haven't done enough. I am not even sure what I am supposed to be doing to help me be more like Christ. I actually love listening to sermons, perhaps I should do that more. I also love listening to music that links me to God. I love being in nature. Those things make me 'feel' closer to God. But, I know from scripture that I cannot love the created more than the Creator. Everyone out there who is able, please pray for my guilt-ridden heart. Pray that GOd will take my guilt and turn into grace that changes me. I need a reminder that I don't have to "do it right." He just wants me to be with Him. There is good guilt and their is bad guilt. I know what true "Godly sorrow" is like. I've experienced those tears. But most of the time, I seem to be plagues with 'performance trap guilt' The kind that says "You will never be good enough for God, so why bother." But that is how tricky satan can be. He takes a truth and twists it just enough to where you can't tell if it's even a lie. He isn't always so blatent. He isn't called a deciever for nothing. Actually, the truth is that I am no good on my own. I am not good enough for God. But, I cannot forget that is the whole point of the God coming down here to me in the form of Christ. I couldn't get to Him, so He came to me.. to us. I am a rebellious creature and not good enough for anything. But GOd loved me so much, even while I was spitting at Him in the face and whoring myself out to the idols of this world, He had a plan the whole time to save me. Time doesn't matter to GOd.. he created it. He had a plan for my salvation even before I was born. Christ died on the cross to carry the weight of my sin for me. Because of that scripture tells me that God sees me as PERFECT!! Isn't that crazy? God totally is not typical!! Because Christ died, my sins are washed away in the sight of God and I can rest assured that I will be with Him for all eternity. When I die here, I will get to see Him face to face.
I know these truths, but I fail to live them out often. Thus, the guilt. Thank God for grace.

This is a phrase that helped me a lot when I first decided to believe Christ did what the Bible says He did ( aka. became a true follower)

JUSTICE is getting what you deserve. (i.e. Justice is that God's wrath would be on my head because I rebelled against him in my sinful nature. That is just. Or that a murdered would get a life sentence or death row.)

MERCY is not getting what you deserve. (i.e. mercy is that God would not lay his wrath on me or that a murdered would get out of jail or not be executed.)

GRACE is getting what you don't deserve. (i.e. grace is that God lets me be his child and I can crawl into his lap when I get to heaven and spend an eternity of peace with Him. Or that a murderer would not only get out of jail, but be given a beautiful home, with a wonderful job, on the ocean just because.

"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Phillipians 1:6