Day 2520 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Isaiah 55:7 NIV
Yesterday we talked about how we can't afford to let shame to hold us back from sharing the message of the cross with those who desperately need to hear it. It's a message that applies to all of us because it meets us in our sins and shame and helps us understand that we don't have to stay there. But all of us can agree that shame and regret are some pretty strong feelings. The thing is that they're just lies.
Shame tells us that our pasts are what tell the whole story of who we are. It reminds us of all the bad choices we've made and the horrible mistakes that have resulted because of them. But what we have to understand is that shame is something that we give power to, it doesn't actually have any power of its own because again it's a lie. We have to reach the point where we're just done listening to a repeat of the past and realize that we are actually free to change.
All of us have lived our lives like they're some kind of game where we're free to make up the rules as we go along and take as many do-overs as we need along the way. While it may have been pretty fun and extremely carefree to follow that illusion, in the end it's left us with nothing but a mountain of mistakes that seems impossible to get over. But that's where God steps in.
Once we reach the end of ourselves and our foolish desires and come to understand the vast difference between our way and His way then we can finally begin to grasp this idea of forgiveness. We can finally realize just how big of a gift His mercy truly is and just how badly we need it as it's our only hope at something better than we deserve. That's literally the most amazing part of all this. We don't deserve it. We can't earn it. All we can do is learn to look beyond our shame and humbly accept the fact that God is willing to be kind to a bunch of heathens like us.
My friends, who we've been doesn't have to be who we become starting today. Shame may tell us a different story and try everything it can to keep us living with our heads down. But we get to decide whether we're going to keep reliving yesterday or try something different. We can choose to forsake our pasts, change how we live, and accept the mercy of a loving Father who is astonishingly willing to pardon all the evils that lie behind us.
But we have to change. We have to understand that we need to change. We have to be able to look at all that we've done and realize that we were made for so much more than a life spent hiding out in the shadows trying to scrape by on the fleeting pleasures of sin's empty, endless lies. As with any other kind of change it's not easy, especially when it's something that is so undeserved. It's hard for us to understand that kind of love and mercy, but we owe it to ourselves to try.
We may never be able to understand how God could look down at us in our filth and wickedness and see anything worth saving, but that's just who He is. That kind of love is truly unlike anything we've ever known because it's only found in Him, and well, we've spent a long time living apart from Him. Thankfully that can change starting right now. His mercy and forgiveness are ready and waiting for us to open our hearts and let them start healing all that sin has destroyed. Let Him. Give Him the chance to show you what you've been missing. It’s a freedom that this world simply can’t fathom.
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