by 
Why does the Bible make me feel like I should die? Like nothing I do will be right by God?
I’m sorry that reading the Bible makes you feel as it does. And it’s true that some parts of the Bible, like Jesus’ instructions to “turn the other cheek,” (Mt. 5:38-40, NRSV) or to “go, sell your possessions, and give your money to the poor,” (Mt. 19:21, NRSV) sound like impossible ideals for us to live up to. You may find comfort in knowing that Paul, to whom authorship of much of the New Testament is attributed, also felt badly about his inability to live as he believed God intended him to live.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” (Romans 7:15-19, NRSV).
Paul, however, also understood the power of God’s grace and God’s desire for us to be justified, or made right, with God through our faith in Christ. In the same letter to the Romans, he also wrote, “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1-4.NRSV).
Please know that you are not beyond God’s reach, God’s power to forgive, or God’s love, and that God longs to be in relationship with you.
