"My ways are higher"

"How are you?"
"I'm fine"
"Why aren't you... fantastic??"
"Because I'm a sinner and live in a sinful world."

That is true and that is how I feel very often... not fantastic. I see my shortcomings, sins, but also especially the world not spinning the way I want it to. What I want or my will is very often not the way God wants or wills for my life. I hold on tightly to my desires that do not align with God's. God will always have His way. =/

But then I realize that His ways are higher than my ways. His ways are better than my ways. It takes a lot of discipline and breaking of my pride to realize that if I trust in Him and His ways, I can delight more. I can delight in His goodness, His character, His love, His gifts, His salvation. I can delight in Him.

Isaiah 55

Let us love and sing and wonder

by John Newton

1. Let us love and sing and wonder
Let us praise the Savior’s name
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame
He has washed us with His blood
He has brought us nigh to God

2. Let us love the Lord Who bought us
Pitied us when enemies
Called us by His grace and taught us
Gave us ears and gave us eyes
He has washed us with His blood
He presents our souls to God

3. Let us sing though fierce temptation
Threatens hard to bear us down
For the Lord, our strong salvation,
Holds in view the conqu’ror’s crown
He, Who washed us with His blood,
Soon will bring us home to God

4. Let us wonder grace and justice
Join and point to mercy’s store
When through grace in Christ our trust is
Justice smiles and asks no more
He Who washed us with His blood
Has secured our way to God

5. Let us praise and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high
Here they trusted Him before us
Now their praises fill the sky
Thou hast washed us with Thy blood
Thou art worthy Lamb of God

"I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners"

What would this look like today?

   Matthew decided to have a banquet to introduce Jesus to his friends. Like most new believers, he wanted to bring everyone he knew to Christ. Luke 5:29 reveals that Matthew (who was also known as Levi) held the banquet in his own house. Jesus was the honored guest. This gathering was attended by some of the most notorious, base, villainous people in the history of banquets. The only people Matthew knew were sordid types, wretched sinners, because no one else would associate with him. The respectable people despised him. His friends were thieves, blasphemers, prostitutes, con artists, swindlers, and other tax collectors - the riffraff of society.
  Supercilious religious types would say, of course, that Jesus shouldn't go to a banquet with such degenerates. That is exactly what the Pharisees thought. But that was not the way of the Savior. Matthew 11:19 indicates that He was known among the people as "a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners." This very banquet probably gave rise to that perception. The Pharisees meant it derisively, but it was nonetheless a fitting title for the Son of Man.
  Matthew 9:10 sets the scene: "It happened that as He was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax-gatherers and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples." This was so scandalous to the self-righteous Pharisees that they could hardly conceal their shock. If he were really the Messiah, they thought, he would be having a dinner for us!

The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur

"It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Matthew 9:12-13