Our whole lives we are told that if we do our best, it will be enough. Then we get out in the real world and it begins to take a toll and at some point, we realize that sometimes our best just isn’t cutting it. At this point we are faced with a challenge – either to give up and say “well if my best isn’t good enough, that’s all I can do, so I will just quit. . . “; or we “gird up our loins” and give it another shot, refusing to give up and denying that we will fail – though even this approach at some point fails and we are defeated.  

The great tragedy of the universe is that, while human beings were made to glorify God, we have all fallen short of this purpose and “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man” (Romans I:23). — especially the one in the mirror. This is the essence of what we call sin — relying on ourselves, rather than on God.

The fact is that our best isn’t good enough. When we live by our own power and authority we are doomed to failure, if not now then soon and if not soon then at the end. In truth, we were not created to live on our own. We were created to live in a partnership with God. This partnership was severed when we decided that we wanted to know the difference between good and evil and accepted the sin that was offered to us.

Knowing that may tend to put us all in a state of depression and fatalistic thoughts will overwhelm us; but: “ You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).  “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

This is the answer! We are not supposed to do this on our own. We have been given all of the power of all of the universe, by our relationship with Christ and our belief in Him. We don’t have to be good enough – He is more than sufficient. All God wants is our allegiance, our trust and our surrender to the way of life that He has planned for us. We were not meant to carry all of this weight alone but to lay at the feet of the cross. We do our best no matter what the outcome, because we are doing it for God, not for men and He is with us, always.

We are J-Bar — we are blessed beyond measure. We love — we are thankful beyond measure. We serve, and in so doing become the leaders that God wants us to be.