“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Romans 3:23 NLT)
Some of you are still laughing at the error you stumbled on towards the end of this past Saturday’s meditation. If you are not still laughing, your initial response, at the least was, “What!” I got it right on the blog site, but to those who I send the meditations to via email, ensuring that I can pray for you simultaneously and personally, as I type your name, Saturday’s meditation had already followed the irretrievable path taken when you push the too dependable, unforgiving “Send” button! Here is what I meant to write, “No go and have marvelous day, rejoicing all the way.” But what I wrote in the emailed meditation said, “Now ho and have a marvelous day, rejoicing all the way.” Errors! Like I just said, you are still laughing. or your initial response was “What!” My response was “On no!” There is a third possible response, a merciful response to reading that sentence that goes I guess there something like this, “Oh I know what Pastor meant. It probably was his oversight being that he was writing so early in the morning.” Well, bless for your mercy, but it still fell under the category of “Errors!”
Listen! I am not going to blame anyone but myself. I am not going to be like Eve who blamed the serpent, or like Adam who blamed Eve, when in fact as the head of the house, informed of what they should not do, he was the person who was assigned the greater blame. But again, I just blame myself. Sorry! Errors!
After pondering on this as it practically, really bothered me all day, I remembered being told that you can find errors by authors in most everything they publish. Curious about that I did a search and found the following quote by an unidentified source, “No amount of errors is acceptable, full stop. But professional proofreaders will tell you that proofreading that leaves a book with about one typo per 1,000 words and is just too amateurish. A better error rate would be about three typos per 10,000 words. At this rate, even readers wouldn’t be able to notice some of the mistakes.” The latter part was comforting, but it did not cancel the part about “No amount of errors is acceptable.” Nevertheless, I’ll just keep trying harder to avoid what my congregation call “Pastoreez.”
Admitting one’s errors and pledging to try and do better is the attitude that we should have, so go forward, out of one year and entering into a new year in just a few days, especially as it applies to our failings. We all have failings, but we are not failures in Christ Jesus. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Be that as it may, let us repent, be sorry as I was in the paragraph immediately above, experience a merciful and cleansing response from the Lord, and then keep trying harder every day to avoid failings by being God-conscious and Christ-centered!
Let’s learn from our behavioral mistakes, proofread our behaviors, thoughts, and interactions with others, as well learning from our failures to meet the expectation to be Christ’s witnesses. Press on higher, committed, yes committed to the climb. Now, go have a great Christmas morning, trusting in the Lord, and casting all your cares and burden on Him. He cares for you! Avoid as many errors as possible by escaping any tendency to take Christian living in a nonchalant way. Be blessed!
“I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.” (Philippians 3:13-14 The Message Bible)
Committed to the climb,
Mark L. King