“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” – Romans 3:23-24

On Sunday morning, my son Allan and I were once again looking at his goldfish.  He noticed that they were “eating” the gravel on the bottom of their tank.  Apparently, fish will pick up gravel in their mouths, consume whatever is on the tiny rock, and then spit it back out.  Unfortunately, that’s not something you can explain to a two year old!  We had to settle with telling the fish “no eating rocks, spit them back out!”  Thankfully that placated Allan and we headed off to church.  I realized that biggest problem in rectifying Allan’s concerns was the different standards to which I hold him and the fish.

As you might imagine, Allan is not allowed to eat rocks or even put them in his mouth…and we have had several conversations on that very subject.  When different people (or critters) are held to different standards, it can be hard to process and handle, even as adults.  Thankfully God holds us all to the same standard…the standard of His Son Jesus.

We are all measured up to Jesus’ perfection and we all fall short.  We “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” we all miss the mark of the standard of Jesus.  Yet even as “all” have missed the standard, so too are “all” justified by God through Jesus!  God knew we could never maintain the standards He set, we could never maintain our own righteousness, and so He sent Jesus to cleanse us from our sins and share His righteousness, His perfection, His accomplished standard with us!

So while Allan may have to settle for a double standard from his dad when it comes to his fish, we never have to settle for a double standard from our Heavenly Father.  We simply can express our joy and appreciation for His perfect standard we’ll never meet on our own and His gift of Jesus to share His righteousness with us!

In Christ Alone,

Pastor Jan