In your faith journey, have you ever felt guilty for a thing you didn’t accomplish or failed to do? “I ate too much”, or “I didn’t read enough”, or “I failed at this”, or “I should have given that” or “I should have taken this action”, or “I…” (you fill in the blank). Do you ever then feel like God is holding you directly accountable for getting that thing right or perfect, and see yourself every day as a case of failure in His eyes, with the “could’ve/should’ve/would’ve” constantly hanging over your head?
Let me ask you a simple question. Do you think a flower struggles to be a flower? 
Nope, they don’t even give it a thought. They just are who God created them to be!
The Lord tells us that all the law can be summed up in just two commands: Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:29-31); and the Apostle Paul tells us that whoever loves has fulfilled the law, for love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:8-10).
What does that teach us? If what you and I struggle with falls outside of a relationship (how we love God and love one another) then we fall into the beautiful playground I like to call “Good/Better/Best”! There are no guilt trips on the playground. As a matter of fact, there are no guilt trips at all because all of our choices are either good, better, or best! And by the way, learning to love well may require a bit of work and forgiveness, but there is still no condemnation in the process.
Are you excited yet? Okay, let me take it a step further and explain more fully what I mean by all of this.
When it comes to fulfillment of the law, old testament or new, it’s all about relationships and how well we learn to LOVE. This is why Christ died for us, to show us how to live and love and freely give us the choice to choose LIFE in Him. He didn’t come to do away with the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17), and it was fulfilled through His love! Here’s a few ways we can express that love:
- Hiding God’s word in our hearts
- Having the right attitude
- Having the willingness and insight to see and call out of another person what God has poured into them
- Having the willingness to invest our time in developing and loving that person and contending for their greatness in the Lord
- Having an attitude of service and help, preferring one another over ourselves
- Learning to forgive others and not hold onto anything that requires us to loosen our grip on Christ
And yes, God does hold us accountable for the choices we make when it comes to how we LOVE, just as a loving Father would hold his child accountable. But when it comes to anything and everything outside of our direct call in learning to love well, that’s where the Good/Better/Best playground of God’s will really comes into view.
Let me try to explain. When we love God and love others, no choice we make in our day to day living is ever the wrong choice, there’s only good, better, and best choice – and the more intimate we are in our relationship with the Lord, the more we hear, see, and understand the direction He is leading. As we journey and grow, we are free to explore and actually enjoy the choices we make! Free to choose this person to marry, free to choose this vocation to serve the Lord within, free to eat these kinds of foods or drink these kinds of drinks, free to play and explore our God-given talents, free to choose to exercise… or not! Free to… well, I’ll let you fill in that blank, too.
Here’s the key: Don’t just settle for good, go for the best!
When “good/better/best” are all three a blessing from God, it’s an easy compromise and settle for good.
In Matthew chapter 13 we read the parable of the good seed, and we learn that the good seed sown is the word of God. In verse 23 we learn that the seed that has fallen on good soil yields a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. In Psalm 37:4 tells us that if we delight in the Lord, He gives us the desires of our heart. So the word planted here that has fallen on good soil is the actual desire He has given. As you take pleasure in Him – in cultivating that intimacy in relationship (loving Him for HIM and not just what He gives), He plants seeds of desire in your heart to do this or to do that, to go here or there, to make this choice or that. Then He actually waters the seed that He has sown, and is delighted to watch it grow, cultivating it and tending it in return so that it will yield the highest crop possible. He knows the choices we will make and goes before us to clear the way and make our paths straight. All we need do is walk in the path that He has gone before us to create based on the desires and talents He gives because HE KNOWS what floats our boats, so to speak. Just walk the path. That’s it!
The compromise is when we settle for a crop yielding 30 (good) fold rather than 60 (better) or 100 (best). We are so easily impressed when we go from zero to 30 that we may think we have arrived and that’s all there is, but it’s not! So often we “settle” for the 30, essentially becoming our own stumbling block to the bigger and better things He has already provided and is just waiting for us to walk into.
I’ll give you an example in my own life. One of my “good/better/best” has to do with food and exercise. I could choose to eat the whole plate of scrumptious delicacies and stuff myself until I’m bloated. That may be good (YUM), but for me personally if I make that a habit then my body begins to reflect my decisions in both weight and health. Where I would like to walk my God created path without physical complication, I can no longer do that 100% of the time because I chose good over better or best.
Another example is if I choose not to devote myself to the Lord in prayer or worship or scripture one day because I did not save the time to do so. Okay, no guilt. But if I allow that to accumulate and one day becomes one week and so on, then I once again become my own stumbling block to yielding a better crop. So then it’s all about understanding that a new day means new choices. I am free to play and explore in the wild and crazy talents, desires, and abilities that God has given me. And He’s cheering me on, encouraging every step like a proud Papa! Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that He is actually singing over us!
“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Isn’t that beautiful? I also like this one from the Apostle Paul:
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” Philippians 3:12
Press on Peeps, press on!
Alabastersky 
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