Humility, Luke 5:8
"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
When Peter saw the miraculous haul of fish that the Lord had given to them when they had toiled all night and caught nothing, he was immediately made aware of his own inability, his own weakness, his own shortcomings and failures and the absolute holiness and power of Christ. Seeing the light of God caused him to see himself for who he really is: a sinful man.
There are times in our lives when we blow it so badly that we wonder how anyone could ever speak to us ever again. You may feel like you are so horrible that you are not deserving of any sort of friendship or love, and that if no one were to ever speak to you again they would be compeletely justified. And this may be true. But it is also true that those people around you are equally as sinful and blow it just as badly as you do, if not worse, just as often as you do. You are not the only person on earth to make mistakes, and you are not the only person who has ever hurt someone or done something so utterly regrettable you wish you could go back in time and erase it. We all say and do things we regret.
The Bible tells us that if we confess our sins, God is just and faithful to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). He not only forgives our sin, but cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Before God we are cleansed and purified, without blemish or spot, completely and wholly without sin. The part that I stumble at, however, is not that God might not forgive me, but that those people who I may have hurt might not forgive me.
Is it God's will that we be fearful and anxious about the possible consequences of our actions? Surely He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. True we should not sin and act foolishly because there will be consequences, but once we have sinned, once we have slipped and fallen and done something we wish we hadn't, I don't believe God would have us to dwell in fear of some horrible consequence that might befall us. Is He a cruel God that is out to punish those who fall short? By no means. Rather, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us to reconcile us to God. He blessed us while we cursed Him. Why would He curse us while we bless Him, just because we make a mistake?
God knows that we are weak. He knows all of our failures and all of our shortcomings and all of our sins. He knows every mistake we are ever going to make before we ever make it. And He still chose us to be call His children, His heirs. God loves us so much that He paid for all of our sins Himself, dying the most excruciating death ever created to reconcile us to Himself.
If God loves me this much, why should I fear what man might think of me? Why should I be afraid that I will lose friends and become scorned, looked down upon and ridiculed, labeled as the one who tears down and does not build up? Surely the fear of man is a snare, and if the Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom do I need to be afraid?
Of course we must realize that we are not perfect and that we do sin. We do hurt people, we do fall short, and it's not okay to just go around and hurt people and do bad things just because we are cleansed by the blood of Christ. We can't just overlook the fact that what we say and do affects others. We ought to be concerned with how we affect others, and we ought to take heed to what others' general opinions about us may be because there may be some truth in what others see in us. If everyone says we are a gossip, we ought not to ignore what they say but pray about it, and if God reveals that indeed this is a problem in your life, by all means pray that He remove this from you and cleanse you.
What did the Lord do when Peter fell at His knees and said "depart from me; for I am a sinful man"? Did He leave Peter? Did He say, "You're right Peter. I shouldn't be hanging out with the likes of you"? No. He told Peter, "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men". He gave Peter a ministry. He made Peter His servant. He gave Peter a calling. So too, when we feel like we are so sinful and so rotten to the very core, Jesus, in His grace and mercy, says "Fear not," and calls us to great things for His kingdom.
There are many times I have felt so unworthy to even be called by the name of Christian that I wonder how the Lord could ever use me. I feel so condemned, so miserable. I don't even want Him to ask me to do anything because I feel like a complete hypocrite in doing it. These are the lies of the enemy creaping into my head. Sure I am a hypocrite. But Jesus paid for that. Sure I am rotten to the core and totally unworthy to be called by His name. But Jesus paid for that. And so I ought to rejoice that all my sins are paid for, not dwell on how rotten I am. I believe Jesus would not want me to stew in guilt and anguish because to do so implies that I don't believe His blood was sufficient. He doesn't see sin in me. He doesn't see me as I see me, but He sees me as through the lense of love, the lense of His blood poured out for me.