Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart.
1 Samuel 12: 20 (NASB)
Scripture: 1 Samuel 12
We have some funny notions sometimes about God forgiving our sins. Sometimes, we think we have sinned too much. Others, we feel the sin is just too large to forgive. Many times, it is because we feel we should know better. But God is ready to forgive any sin that we confess to Him. This devotion looks at, if as Peter says, we should be forewarned about sins, how can God forgive us of those sins?
We can really bite on ourselves. We want to obey God, but we almost always mess up. Sometimes big time. We get to the point where we ask if God can really forgive us for the sins we commit.
We know Jesus is our example. But we can’t seem to do what Peter said: “… be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace” (2 Pet. 3: 14 ESV).
We keep reading, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord” (Ps. 119: 1 ESV). Unfortunately, we think that doesn’t describe us.
We are not blameless. We certainly are not without spot or blemish. And that does steal our peace away.
Part of the reason, we say, that we mess up is because Scriptures are so hard to understand. Peter even says that himself: “… There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (II Pet. 3: 16 ESV).
On a side note, I love how in saying, “… in them …” (II Pet. 3: 16 ESV), Peter accused Paul of being hard to understand (II Pet. 3: 15). My Ladies say that all the time. We call Paul the Energizer Bunny, but wish he would speak plain English.
Back on track. How are we going to not mess up if we don’t understand what we are supposed to do?
We need to make sure our relationship is right with God. In order to do that, we have to read the Bible. We have to pray. We have to listen to Him as He talks back to us. Then we can do this: “You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability” (II Pet. 3: 17 ESV).
We will know beforehand how God wants us to react because we have grown “… in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Pet. 3: 18 ESV). We will then “… be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (Jas. 1: 18 ESV).
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But it is not. It sounds all cut and dry, but it isn’t. There is the fuzziness because God allows us to have our free will in play. There is this fuzziness because sometimes He doesn’t point blank tell us, “Do this. Don’t do this.”
But if truth be known, a lot of times we haven’t put in the time. We haven’t read, prayed, and listened. We are going in and paraphrasing verses, relying on faulty memory, and holding on to the promise that God will never leave us even though we have not been spending time with Him.
Oh, wait. It isn’t that we shut up and we’re done? God is going to talk back??? If He doesn’t talk back, how do we know what He is saying to us?
But we expected God to work on our time tables. We have our meeting scheduled from 6:00 – 6:30 am. Any other time God wants to talk with us, His people will have to talk with our people and schedule a follow-up meeting. If we can’t get it done in the scheduled time, it is really going to throw a kink in the day.
Then we wonder why things went south. Maybe because we didn’t activate the GPS (God’s Provision System) beforehand? How can God provide if we aren’t engaged in Him.
Maybe these are the things we need to build as habits. (Preaching to myself here.) We talked about picking one and working on it. Start small, but start. Email me and let me know what you are going to be working on so that I can pray for you.
Yes, we will still mess up every once in a while (hopefully only every once in a while). We can take comfort in this verse: “Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called” (Is. 54: X ESV).
God will eliminate any sins that we confess to Him. This applies even to the ones that we know we shouldn’t be doing but keep doing anyway.
It comes down to confessing our sins (I Jn. 1: 9 ESV). He is patient with us — He just wants us all to believe in Him (II Pet. 3: 9 ESV). He wants to fill us up full with His love (Eph. 3: 19 ESV).
So, can God really forgive us of the sins we commit? Yes, He devised a plan to restore our relationship to Him. Hopefully, you have asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior so that your relationship with God can be restored. If not, check out the Plan of Salvation. If you already have, start living like it!
Loving Heavenly Father. We are so humbled. Long before the world was formed, long before the first sin was ever committed, You knew we would be a fallen people. You didn’t want that to be our fate through eternity. So you made a plan. It is a plan we have trouble understanding. How could you send Your Son, Your Only Wonderful Son, to die in our places? For all of us? When we were still fallen? There are only a few words that can answer those questions: love, grace, mercy. Send Him You did. Love us You do. Help us to understand. Help us to know beforehand how we are supposed to resist temptation. Prepare us to always be with You. Amen.
What do you think? We’ve talked in yesterday’s devotion and today’s devotion about choosing to strengthen one area of our walk with God by building better habits. Email me and let me know what you are working on so that I may pray for you. As always, you can leave me a comment below or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
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