This morning, I dropped my 2001 Nissan Frontier off at a service center for long overdue maintenance and repairs. The repair / maintenance list is short: 1. Repair leak that involves the power steering lines / reservoir. 2. Replace timing belt and all drive belts. 3. Replace water pump (old one has to be removed to get to timing belt). 4. Replace ball-joints. 5. Perform a front end alignment. Okay, the list is pretty long and more than I am capable of doing and will take more time than I have to give if I were capable.  The truck has 196,000 miles on the odometer, my plan is to get another 100,000 out of these repairs.

As I was waiting for a ride to my study, I began thinking of the repairs and maintenance our lives need.

• Paul tells his readers to “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
• James tells his readers, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:22-25)

The admonition they both give is for us to look at how we measure up to God’s standard and make the needed repairs in our life. Those repairs begin with knowing that like my truck repairs, I am (we are) not capable. On our own we are not and cannot be good enough. We require the grace of God to apply His righteousness to our broken lives and repair us for His glory. (2 Corinthians 5:21). Then we strive to continue to walk in the light along side Christ (1 John 1:7).

• Scott