Thursday Devotional – Jesus is Worthy of Our Sincere Repentance (11/21/24)

A couple years ago we started daily adding in repentance in our evening family prayer time. It was uncomfortable for a while. Actually, it can still be uncomfortable to verbally acknowledge sin before God and my family, especially if one of my sins that day was against a family member! Repenting each night has helped us all realize that we sin every single day, and usually multiple times a day! We try to be specific and not just general. Jesus knows all about our sin already. It’s to our own benefit to acknowledge it, desire to turn from it and accept the Holy Spirit’s help to replace it with godly thoughts and actions.

Jesus saw all that the Thyatira church had done. He saw those that were faithful and those living in habitual and destructive sin.

Revelation 2:18-23   ¹⁸ “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:

These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. ¹⁹ I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

²⁰ Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. ²¹ I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. ²² So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. ²³ I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.

Jesus gives us opportunity to repent, just as He gave those in Thyatira time to repent. He lovingly warned them of the specific consequences if certain individuals refused to repent. His judgment is always perfect and timely.  

Jesus is Omniscient (all-knowing) as he searches our hearts and minds. What sin does He already know about that you and I need to repent and turn from? He desires our sincere repentance and offers His help to replace it with something far more satisfying and rewarding!

Confidently And Fearlessly Forward!

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4

I am going to open up and be vulnerable here.  There are many things I am fearful of.  These fears have at times entered not only my mind but also my heart.  Sometimes, I am afraid for my children and how the world tries to crush their spirit.  I fear going places because of exterior threats such as acts of violence.  In my lifetime, my fears have included never having a significant other to love me.  As I approach a new milestone in my life, I worry if my life has made a difference, and though my family has plenty, I will fear losing it all in some fashion or another.  They have consumed me and made me at times want to hide in my own bedroom and close the door to the world.  Some of you may have felt any combination of those fears at some point of your life.  Yet looking back when all of those fears were at their heightened state, I still walked out of my bedroom and house into that very world that tells me to run and retreat.  Why?  Why would any of us want to venture into this world that pushes us into these feelings of insecurity?

We do this because we have been born again through Jesus Christ and are thus of God’s Kingdom.  Not of this world.  Through Christ, we find bravery and courage to move forward into a world that tells us we are not good enough.  The distractions that are of this world are made to create a barrier between ourselves and God.  Thus it is easy to understand that as we focus on the world around us, we struggle to see our own goodness and worthiness.  Through a worldly lens, we see others as who we are not, and focus on what we do not have instead of that God has provided.  If we are focused on God with both our minds and hearts, we immediately see our infinite value as His child.  Others become those you can share God’s light with and what we have is seen as what we are blessed with instead of craving that which we do not have.

We are incredibly blessed to be loved by the one true living God!  Knowing this, we can be open about our fears and uncertainties of the world because we are not of it.  We simply overcome them focusing on who we are (God’s child) and what we are certain of; that God loves us so much that He gave His one and only son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).  Do not let this world convince you otherwise.  You may not see yourself of deserving of God’s grace, but none of us are.  You are indeed worthy because through Jesus Christ, you are born again!  What fears and worries are hindering your connection with God?  How can you move forward knowing you are His child?  My prayer is when confronted with worldly insecurities, we affix our hearts and minds on Jesus Christ, and move confidently and fearlessly forward!  Amen.    

Right Here and Now

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  Ephesians 3:16-19

As people, we spend a lot of time focusing on what’s ahead.  Some of us get caught up into the past.  Very rarely do we focus on the here and now.  We too often look at our own spiritual growth and development and usually say one of two things.  One, we look to God saying, Lord, please do something for us to understand your will for our lives or remove this barrier that is in front of me.  Those who dwell in the past become depressed because the past represents the old you; the one who sinned and always said or did the wrong thing at the wrong time.  However, there is a select few who get it.  They realize the future is what God holds for them and the past is what God forgave them of.  What matters most is that we are thankful to God in the here and now, and He removed the chains that held you up in the past and liberated you to go forward into the future.

God loves you exactly where you are, and has done everything in your life to put you in position to do great things right now.  If you are like me, you might look at your life and ask what God sees in a sinner like me.  I know I still am subject to sin, but I am far from the person I used to be when Christ saved me.  Through His grace, I am given the opportunity to humbly get back up and learn in my quest to do better.  That is what growth is.  It is messy, painful, and often unwanted.  Paul in today’s verses prays for us to both embrace the transformation that we are undergoing and appreciate it today.  Through it all, we come to find achievement, maturity, and greater understanding of God’s will for our lives.  Your failures through God’s love and grace help shape you.  They do not however define you.  Furthermore if you are too focused on the future as to how you will get better, you may miss on what God is trying to show you right now.  If we know God is all knowing and all powerful and we trust in Him completely, would it make sense that you are right where God wants you right now?  All that has happened occurred because God allowed it to.  Our goal is to embrace the person we are now; flawed but loved by the Almighty God who is the only one who is perfect.

God has put you right where you need to be today.  You may not be where you want to be, and you might not be happy with how you got here.  But today, God is what He has always been in your life; present and with you every step of the way.  So as Paul hopes, let us all experience Christ love in its fullness so that we will realize today that we can do anything!  How can you focus on the here and now more?  What will you do with the strength God has given you?  My prayer is that rather than dwelling on the past or focusing on the future, we pause and embrace the person God has made you right here and now.  Amen and may you have blessed and Happy New Year!

The Two Sides of Grace

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:6-10

There are times in life where you gain something more than you initially though.  Watching my daughter graduate was a moment where she had triumphed over some incredible odds.  Yet in that moment, my wife and I realized that we too had made it through our own hardship to watch her achieve this moment in her life.  Finding God was a moment where I felt like I won something.  However, I did not just win grace from God.  I finally was able to fight back against someone who I lost to continually each and every day.  That was my own guilt.

God’s grace is needed not only for us but also from us.  There is a seemingly limitless amount of benefits that come with being a child of God.  While God’s love is amazing, His grace is incredibly transformative.  When I was given grace, my life as a Christian began.  However, one of the greatest changes that occurred since then was not my acceptance of God’s grace.  It was forgiveness of me.  You see, I felt so guilty from sin that the person who least believed I deserved grace was me.  In fact, I still at times feel that I let God down.  Then, I learned about how guilt was an instrument of Satan.  You see, we should feel bad about sin.  However, Christ died on the cross for all sin.  This did not include only our past sins.  It included present and future sins as well.  Our heartfelt repentance is what is necessary for forgiveness not only from God but also us.

We already have victory when we chose Christ as Lord of our lives.  We must remember that God extends His grace to us not only to remove our separation from Him but also the guilt that would say you are not worthy of it.  Do not give in!  God’s love for you is as great as it always has been, and even in your weakness, God grace is sufficient for you.  What do you need to forgive yourself for?  How can you allow God’s grace to be enough for you?  My prayer is that we embrace both sides of grace; from God and for ourselves.  Amen.

Thurs Devo - Is Confession Enough?

Numbers 5:5-7            ⁵ The Lord said to Moses, ⁶ “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord is guilty ⁷ and must confess the sin they have committed. They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged.

Any sin is a sin against God. If I wrong someone or hurt them or fail to do something I know to do, I don’t just sin against another person, but against my Creator and Heavenly Father.

I need to recognize and then confess my sin to God and to those affected. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were also required to make restitution plus 20%! This was in addition to taking the time and money to offer a sin and guilt offering!

Because Jesus has paid our penalty for our sin already and was the sacrifice for all sin, we no longer are required to make sin and guilt offerings. However, is confession enough?

We don’t earn forgiveness by making restitution, but if we are truly sorry for our sin, we will want to make things right. If we truly desire to follow God and His commands, we won’t just be sorry about the consequences of sin. Sorry about the consequences is just having a selfish pity party. Truly sorry for being unfaithful to God means we want Him to help us restore whatever was damaged for His glory and the benefit of all involved. Our actions, behavior and generosity will reflect our true heart.

Is there someone you and I have wronged or hurt?

Have we confessed it and to whom?

(At times in the past, I have confessed my sin to God for hurting someone else, but I should have also confessed it to the other person.)

Then, how can we show our confession is not just empty words?

Will we sincerely love God and others we have hurt by going above and beyond (with God’s help) to make restitution when possible?

Alice