Encouragement
As Christians we want to be perfect, make no mistakes, and certainly not sin. It breaks our heart even the idea of such failure. There are those times unfortunately when we do fall, we sin. Thank God scripture says we have an advocate with the Father. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness." If we love Jesus we are not trying to get away with sin, rather we want to get away from sin. It is precisely because of that love we beat ourselves up so much over our failures. Sometimes it is just hard to forgive myself, to cut myself some slack. I am not in anyway trying to excuse the failure but at the same time I can not continue to remind myself of past failures and live in the pain of that past failure when God has already forgotten it. If I confessed it God has forgotten it and I should do the same.
I went for a walk one morning to pray. I often walk when I pray. The day before I had sinned, I failed my King, but as I went to pray little did I know the lesson and the victory that was about to be mine. As I walked, I had not gotten very far before this thought came to me. God is not going to hear you because you are unworthy. You know what you did yesterday. I then did something that I didn't normally do in response to those kind of thoughts. I actually said this out loud, You're right I am unworthy to be heard but you are not telling me the whole story. He is not listening to me because I am worthy to be heard, He is listening to me because He wants to! If God wants to listen to unworthy people that is His business! You know what? That little voice has left and has never returned and it has been years now since this happened. PRAISE THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!
My response to those kind of thoughts in the past would have been much different. I probably would have agreed that I was unworthy and lived in the pain of that thought for days, and weeks, months even. Enough time would have had to pass so the memory of the failure began to be forgotten by me. That is a recipe for a long, fruitless, painful life. My response that particular morning was different. That's all it took. A different response based on the word of God and not based on my own assessment of myself. I actually did this not really knowing what I was doing. I was just frustrated.
My encouragement to you is this. If there is sin in your life confess it, deal with it now. Then determine as an act of your will that you are simply not going to keep rehearsing the memory of it against yourself anymore. Righteousness is ours as a gift because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. God is the One who establishes my status before Him, not me! We need to just enter into what He has declared is already ours.
Bottom line is this; God listens to me because He loves me and that love was not initiated by my worth. It is initiated from somewhere deep in His own heart and His love for me was there even before I was born. So the next time a little voice whispers to you that you are unworthy to be heard. Say it out loud. God listens to me because He wants to, and if He wants to listen to unworthy people thats His business. Amen!
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