Day 1943 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Peter 5:10 NIV

In yesterday's post we talked about the enormous cost of sin. Hopefully we all understand just how deadly it is and why it needs to be dealt with in our lives. We really are at war with sin. It's doing anything and everything it can to drag us down and keep us lost and broken. Sin pulls us away from God. It pulls us away from joy. It leads us to this dark place of shame and guilt. And all of those bits and pieces add up to feeling completely lost and hopeless.

I thought about this one last night. Even though we've all gotten our tails kicked by sin, there is hope. Yes, we've all wandered away from God's side. We've left our foundation of joy and peace and ventured out into the world looking for something else. All of that wandering, all that searching takes a lot of things away from us. We lose our hope. We lose our joy. We lose our peace. We lose our innocence. We lose ourselves. We lose a lot by living a life of sin.

But not all is lost. God is a God of reconciliation. The Gospel is the story of restoration. We have done everything we could possibly do to burn the bridge to Him. But He sent Christ to fill that gap that our sins and horrible choices had made. He did that so that we could be brought back to life. While we may have been lost and dead in sin, He showed us through Christ that not even death can stop Him from leading us back to Himself.

We've lost a lot in this war. But He can help us get it all back, and even more. He can restore everything that we've given away. He can help us find everything we've lost. He can pull us back to the hope and peace that we left behind a long time ago. We don't have to be afraid that all is lost. Sin wants us to believe that there's nothing better out there. But that's just not the truth. There is something better, and it's so much better than we could imagine.

Friends, I'm speaking from experience. God's been doing a lot in my life lately, and it's been some of the most exciting times that I remember. Yes, even in the midst of this complete chaos in our world, I still just find myself smiling and beyond thankful every single day. He's helped me find so many things that I didn't even know I'd lost along the way. And rediscovering so many amazing things is truly more amazing than I can describe.

So please don't think that you're hopeless. Don't think that everything you've lost in your life is gone for good. Don't believe that things are too broken to be repaired. Again, God is all about restoration and reconciliation. He wants to help us find our way back to the peace and joy that we've spent so long looking for. He wants to lead us back to hope that we once had.

Simply put, His grace is much stronger than our ability to screw up. Just give Him a chance to show you what you've been missing. His love, mercy, and compassion far exceed anything that we think we could ever find following the ways of this world. As I said yesterday, stop compromising. Quit giving things away because you think this world can give you something better. Not gonna happen. Instead, get back to following Christ and He will take you to a life more incredible than you can imagine!