Thursday Devotional - Faith and Forgiveness

The other day I got angry with James for throwing snow in Sarah’s face soon after I asked him not to do that. In my anger, I went back to vigorously shoveling. A few minutes later James came up to me and asked “Mom, do you know about forgiveness?” “Yes,” I said, “do you know about forgiveness? You could ask Sarah to forgive you.” I overheard him walk back to Sarah and ask for her forgiveness. Later that night he also asked for my forgiveness and said he had prayed and asked God to forgive him. I had to ask God and James for forgiveness, too… 

As we talked last week, we show our love for God by obeying Him and His laws. Just like children don’t always follow their parents’ rules, we don’t always obey our Heavenly Father. What do we do with our sin? What will God do with our sin?

God is holy, so He must punish sin. He can either punish us for our own sin or we can accept His punishment of Jesus.

Romans 3:25-26                   God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Do you still stand guilty in your own sin or has God justified you? Have you accepted His punishment of your sin on Jesus? If so, then you have been forgiven and justified!

Alice

Tues Devo: Who are we sinning against?

Genesis 39:7-9 “It came about after these events that his master’s wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, ‘Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?’” (NASB)

Hello,

I have been working on reading through the Old Testament, and this week I am covering the story of Joseph. Something that really struck me here is who Joseph was worried about. While he mentioned his boss, it was clear that Joseph knew his true accountability was to God. His deterrent for improper behavior was not what could (or in later in the story, what was) be done to him by human hands – but his deterrent was his understanding of who God is, and his personal accountability to God.

I pray we are all challenged this week with aligning our choices to our accountability to God.

Will Hill