just not good enough?…

so this saturday i was in charlotte for the whole day with a couple of my buddies… we decided to go to carowinds and just hang there all day. however… since both of the apple products in my life were broken – my imac and ipod… i needed to take them to the apple retail store up at the charlotte mall to get them fixed… so, got to the store, was waiting in the technician area (or the “genius bar” as they call it, i’m not even going to start on how ridiculous that sounds, the best buy “geek squad” is one thing, but genius bar is totally another… especially when the techs refer to themselves in 3rd person as geniuses) i started paying attention to what was going on all over the store. the first thing that caught my eye was the variety of sales rep they had. i’ve always assumed apple would hire only the trendy, metro guys and girls for all their sales needs, but at the store, they had just about the whole spectrum of people. they had the mom and dad types, the hip pop kids, young and old, trendy and… not so trendy… people. though, despite the variety of people… they all had the same depressing message for any soul that wondered into the apple store: what you have now, whether non-apple or old apple products, are just not good enough, your life will be without happiness and joy until you buy this new apple gizmo. i watched a man convinced his new cell phone was just not good enough and he needed… not want, but needed the iphone 3g that is coming out in a month. i am not naive enough to think that these sale reps aren’t just doing their job, but i’ve just never seen anyone so viciously convincing your life sucks until you buy their product..

it’s interesting that satan does that exact same thing to us isn’t it?… now i am not saying apple is satan, i use plenty of apple products in my day to day life… but just that mentality of, you are just NOT good enough until you do/get this… how many times have you heard this whisper in your mind as you are trying to decide whether or not to get involved in an ministry to talk to someone about jesus “you can’t do this… you are not good enough… look at your sin and all of your mess ups… you will just be a hypocrite if you do it, you are not good enough… just not good enough…” i know i’ve bought into that lie way too many times. satan is just so good at convincing not only we are not good enough, but really, what jesus did for us on the cross was not sufficient… that our savior can’t really save us from ourselves or our past…

it’s amazing how many times jesus try to remind us just how good he is, how his grace is sufficient for us, his power made perfect in our weakness – 2 corinthians 12:9. of how we are made anew, we are now perfect and unblemished in the eyes of our god – 2 corinthians 5:17. think about just how crazy is that, our savior’s power is made perfect in our weaknesses… i mean all those lies that you hear that you are just not good enough, those lies have become reasons of why you should continue to charge forward and serve, the reasons of why are you not good enough are now signs for people to see that you are a new creation, the weaknesses you had are now strengths because of jesus, that at the end of the day, people no longer see your flaws, they see the glory of our god.

i pray that we don’t let satan rob us from the joy of our weaknesses… that we will not buy into the lies he tries to bombard us day and night, that we realize, we are a new creation, that our god… our savior… our only love can and will use our weaknesses now and past for his glory… that we will find joy in our savior because he has redeemed us, we can now stand before him without guilt or shame.

one love,

jeff