What does it remind you of the phrase “Fallen Short”, it reminds me the Game of Cricket, where the batsman runs and when they fall short of running between the wickets, they are declared out, it can be just by few cms or inches as we see in the TV replay?
Similarly in God’s view how are we fallen short?
Have you ever wondered Why God created us?
If your answer is, God created me to have a good life in earth, take care of your family, have a good job, work daily and live a decent life. then you (Even though all the above answers are true) are falling short of God’s eyes.
The answer to the above question lies in Bible.
'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ' Romans 3:23
Because we sinned, we have fallen short of Glory of God.
So let’s understand Romans 3:23 more
a. What is this Glory of God?
b. We know Sin, but how did Sin make us fall short?
Falling short in Glory of God
To find answers to this question, lets rewind two chapters back in Romans 1
'For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. ' Romans 1:20-23
So as God created human beings, he gave us invisible qualities of his eternal power and divine nature that we can sense and acknowledge. We have free will to choose God vs. ourselves.
But in our actions, we fail to acknowledge God on any of them and kept ourselves (Humans) as the reason for this work, this is what the word describes “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him”
For example
How many times we say thank you to God for the new day he gave us. We always take many things for granted to say its part of life.
How many times we say thank you to God, for good health and many provisions we enjoy in this life. We always attribute many of the blessings to our human work or any actions we do. We don’t keep God as first reason for this blessing. E.g., Say As a student you receive good marks in a subject, you always say you got this due to my excellent preparation and hard work, many times we fail to acknowledge that success we have had is due to the God’s wisdom and grace.
This is how we are as humans; we have our natural instinct to upraise ourselves than to give God the due credit., this Self-centeredness have made us “fallen short “of Glory of God, As Paul refers
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him”
How did Sin make us fall short?
Let’s look at how Sin made us fall short in God’s Eyes. When you read Romans 1 it gives us a detail on how Sin entered Humans thru the God’s Wrath, I have tried to separate this in three parts to make us understand it better.
1. Idiolatry worship: Our God is a zealous God. God’s wrath came upon us as we exchanged his glory to worship idols
'Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ' Romans 1:22-24
2. Lies : We failed to recognize many things that were created by God and traded that for a lie.
'They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. ' Romans 1:25
3. Godly Knowledge: Furthermore, humans were corrupted; we did not think its worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. As a result a lot of Sinful nature in us came to us
'Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ' Romans 1:28-30
From all of this we know where our nature comes from, it’s very true we are deep rooted in sin and our instinct goes to Sinful ways and look to do opposite from everything God is asking us to do, that’s why we are falling short of Gods glory.
This is what God refers.
'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ' Romans 3:23
God’s Plan from Falling Short
Yes, we know Sin is keeping us part, but God has plans for us to overcome the wrath of Sin. This is true when we do the following.
1. Faith in Jesus Christ – When we believe with whole heart that Jesus Christ is the Lord who has come to save us (both Christians and non-Christians)
'This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 'Romans 3:22
2. Grace of Jesus Christ – Every time we fall short by sins, he does not show his anger and judge us or condemn us for our Sins, instead he gives us Grace to see if we will repent of our Sin to turn to him.
'for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ' Romans 3:23-24
3. Blood of Jesus Christ –Prior to Christ death, in old testament, people sacrifice the blood of Goat / Lamb or Chicken or Cow or any animal that will cleanse their sin. But Christ took all of our sins on himself and he shed his blood on the cross, ones for all and conquered sin and death. There is no god in earth who has done this kind of ultimate sacrifice for our Sins of the world.
'God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. ' Romans 3:25-26
So what is this Forbearance – Mean? Cambridge definition of Forbearance goes like this “the quality of being patient and being able to forgive someone or control yourself in a difficult situation:”
Call for Action
1. Faith in Jesus – Believe from your heart that we have one God – Jesus who has all the power to save us from Sin and set us free.
2. Thanksgiving– Glorify God in all your Actions and thanksgiving for all the works he does in your life, no matter how small or big things are.
3. Repentance – Ask for forgiveness of Sins from your heart, where the power of God can wash away your old habits and turn to him. Don’t come and say I repent for my sin and once again do the same thing and blame Satan for this action. Repent from your Sin deep down from your heart to receive the forbearance from God.
Stay Blessed.
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