Are you beyond forgiveness? Are you too far gone for God to fix or to even want to fix?
Many feel like God's forgiveness is for other folks, but not them. What they have done is too bad, too wrong, to be forgiven by God. Others feel like they need no forgiveness from God. They have little awareness of the "wrongness" in their lives. Those folks need to wake up, but that's another topic for another day.
The Bible has a word for anything that falls short of God's character and nature. That word is sin. The list of things we've done that fall short is a list of our sins. But beneath that list is a corrupt, unholy essence. So here's the question for today: are your sinful acts and the corrupt essence that is their foundation too much for God?
Pride, arrogance, lust, greed, rebellion, selfishness -- these are just some of the wrong essences that give birth to our wrong thoughts and actions. That wrong essence is the root and foundation of our sins. It's a person's unrighteous nature that reveals itself in the wrongs on the list. It's true: what's inside will always show itself someway, somehow.
Remember, sin isn't just about the stuff you do; it's also about your very essence: fallen, broken, corrupted, rebellious. In spite of that, God wants to reconcile you to Himself.
He knows you're messed up, He knows you can't fix yourself, but He wants you anyway. He wants to show off in your life, showing how He can take that which so broken, so polluted and corrupt, and transform you into someone so beautiful that you will be completely new from the inside out, conformed to the image of His Son, and fully walking in an unhindered, eternal love relationship with Him.
Recognize your brokenness before Him in prayer. Express faith, surrender, and and a desire to be transformed. Give Him free reign to change anything and everything, inside and out. Ask Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit. I don't want to go through another year -- much less, eternity -- staying like I am now. I want more than forgiveness: I want to be transformed and forever be in that unhindered love relationship that He so desires.
Speaking of Jesus, Scripture says that all things were made through Him, by Him, and for Him (Colossians 1:16). We are cleansed and forgiven by His sacrifice on the cross, but we are transformed by His life (through the Holy Spirit) in us. God's plan to reconcile you to Himself is through Jesus, His Son (Colossians 1:20). It's a mystery, but it's real.
Back to the opening premise of this post: If you think you've done so much wrong that you're too sinful for God to forgive you, get over yourself. You're not too big for God. He's fixed a lot of broken, unclean, sinful people over the centuries. Again, you are NOT too big for God. But you must let Him do it His way, through His Son, Jesus Christ the Messiah, because there's only one way to be unforgivable: reject Jesus. That's it. Again, the only sin that won't be forgiven, that can't be forgiven, is the sin of rejecting Jesus and His transforming work.
Many feel like God's forgiveness is for other folks, but not them. What they have done is too bad, too wrong, to be forgiven by God. Others feel like they need no forgiveness from God. They have little awareness of the "wrongness" in their lives. Those folks need to wake up, but that's another topic for another day.
The Bible has a word for anything that falls short of God's character and nature. That word is sin. The list of things we've done that fall short is a list of our sins. But beneath that list is a corrupt, unholy essence. So here's the question for today: are your sinful acts and the corrupt essence that is their foundation too much for God?
Pride, arrogance, lust, greed, rebellion, selfishness -- these are just some of the wrong essences that give birth to our wrong thoughts and actions. That wrong essence is the root and foundation of our sins. It's a person's unrighteous nature that reveals itself in the wrongs on the list. It's true: what's inside will always show itself someway, somehow.
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." (1 John 1:8-10)It takes both: God wants to forgive us AND fix us. He knows that fixing the wrong actions requires transforming the corrupted essences that serve as our internal foundation. That's why Jesus called the Pharisees "whitewashed tombs". They were nice-looking on the outside but full of dead men's bones; they hadn't been changed on the inside. Here's that passage and a bit more:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23: 25-27)Do you want to be clean before God? It's impossible for a person to clean their own heart. Two verses come to mind: "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and "Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”? (Proverbs 20:9). The obvious answer is that no one can. So, the first step is to recognize your total inability to make yourself right before God.
Remember, sin isn't just about the stuff you do; it's also about your very essence: fallen, broken, corrupted, rebellious. In spite of that, God wants to reconcile you to Himself.
He knows you're messed up, He knows you can't fix yourself, but He wants you anyway. He wants to show off in your life, showing how He can take that which so broken, so polluted and corrupt, and transform you into someone so beautiful that you will be completely new from the inside out, conformed to the image of His Son, and fully walking in an unhindered, eternal love relationship with Him.
Recognize your brokenness before Him in prayer. Express faith, surrender, and and a desire to be transformed. Give Him free reign to change anything and everything, inside and out. Ask Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit. I don't want to go through another year -- much less, eternity -- staying like I am now. I want more than forgiveness: I want to be transformed and forever be in that unhindered love relationship that He so desires.
Speaking of Jesus, Scripture says that all things were made through Him, by Him, and for Him (Colossians 1:16). We are cleansed and forgiven by His sacrifice on the cross, but we are transformed by His life (through the Holy Spirit) in us. God's plan to reconcile you to Himself is through Jesus, His Son (Colossians 1:20). It's a mystery, but it's real.
Back to the opening premise of this post: If you think you've done so much wrong that you're too sinful for God to forgive you, get over yourself. You're not too big for God. He's fixed a lot of broken, unclean, sinful people over the centuries. Again, you are NOT too big for God. But you must let Him do it His way, through His Son, Jesus Christ the Messiah, because there's only one way to be unforgivable: reject Jesus. That's it. Again, the only sin that won't be forgiven, that can't be forgiven, is the sin of rejecting Jesus and His transforming work.
"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." (John 3:17-18)
"Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work." (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)
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