Day 2521 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
1 Peter 2:10 NIV
We've gone so long believing the lies of sin that breaking free from them can feel anything but possible. The shame, the guilt, the regret, the realization that our sins and mistakes have long kept us from being something better. It's a very heavy weight realizing that we've been living a lie that has prevented us from being who we were meant to be all along. It's hard.
Sin has stolen all the good that God created us to be. It's reduced us to nothing. The lies and deceit that sin makes us believe have destroyed us from the inside out and that's one of the most painful realizations that there is. Knowing we could have been different. Wondering what our lives may have been like had we not fallen for the deception. Knowing that things would have been far different and far better had we stood up to the devil's lies is one of those truly miserable feelings that most of us grapple with when we finally come to see the truth of who've been and what we've done.
But as we talked about a day or so ago, who we've been doesn't have to be who we are now. Once we were nothing. We were lost. We were wandering aimlessly from selfish desire to wicked pleasure and back again in this search for something meaningful and lasting. But we never found it because it isn't there. Sin has nothing of any value to offer us. But we've sure given it every chance to prove otherwise!
The truth is that sin will never give us anything good because it has nothing good. The sooner we come to grips with the fact that we've fallen for so many lies the better. Once we can understand the gift that God is giving us then we can finally start being changed by it. His mercy gives us an identity. His love rewrites our story. His grace covers our countless mistakes and gives us the hope of something better than anything we've found along the broken roads of sin.
Our pasts will always be there to try and tell us who we are. Broken. Sinner. Mistake. Lost. Nothing. But we have the chance to listen to a much different voice with a far better message. God says that we're loved. Wanted. Valued. Forgiven. We're the ones that choose who and what we listen to, but it's pretty easy to see which option is best. Doesn't mean it's always easy but it will always be worth the fight to stay focused on Him and what He says about us.
Friends, once we were lost and broken and worthless. We were nothing. We were slaves to sin and darkness. But then Christ came. Then the love of God cut through that darkness and ignited this hope that we shouldn't have. His mercy and grace flipped the script and offers us an ending to this story that none of us ever saw coming. Please take Him up on that offer. It will change everything!
We can keep searching through the rubble of sin hoping to stumble upon something good. Or we can just accept the fact that we're never going to find anything where we've been looking and realize that everything we've been looking for is found in Christ alone. We don't have to stay lost and hopeless. His mercy opens a door to something so much better. Don't let arrogance or shame keep you from stepping through it because what lies on the other side is the definition of life-changing!
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