I was talking with a friend of mine and had a wonderful
revelation.
I have always struggled with understanding some things. Like, how could David be such a SINNER and be
called a man after God’s own heart and righteous and yet part of me identifies
with that combination. I always secretly
believed that I could sin and still love God and be close to Him. There are obviously many issues that come
along with that like guilt and the sin separating me from God – except that the
sin only separates me from God it doesn’t separate God from me. God never leaves me. He never forsakes me. I forsake Him because of my own guilt. The parable of the prodigal shows me
that. I believe people who say they are homosexual
and love God. I do not find those two
things automatically mutually exclusive because if they are people who commit
adultery or have sex outside of marriage but have hetero sex are in big
trouble.
I’ve always been taught that repentance means to feel sorry
for my sin and then turn away from it.
But that is not the Greek/Biblical definition of repentance. The Greek definition is to turn away, to be
changed from it. (http://biblesuite.com/greek/3340.htm) This sits well with me. How else could David be a man after God’s own
heart and still commit the egregious sins he committed?
I wonder how much the enemy has kept us from by keeping us
focused on our own guilt instead of on following God balls out (if you’ll
excuse the expression) failures and all and just keep going after all He is and
all He wants for us. Our guilt stops us
in our tracks because we have the idea that God holds it against us when He
tells us he doesn’t. He gives the
example of a loving father (not a bad father) to show us who He is. He gives us the example of the prodigal who
wants to go his own way and takes all God has to give and lives the life he thought
he wanted to live and finds himself at the bottom only to discover he’s
homesick and wants his daddy again. When
he goes home, there is Dad with open arms waiting expectantly to throw a party
for his son’s return. Is that how you
feel after you sin and turn back to God?
Or do you still feel like you’re not good enough? Like you have to “pay” for what you’ve
done. I think we convince ourselves that
some payment is due even though perhaps we don’t give a voice to that
semi-unconscious belief.
Throw off all that hinders you.
I am becoming renewed.I am excited!
I can’t wait to hear what else God wants to tell me.
I found this very helpful. I was raised Catholic famous for guilt trips following sin. I always find a need to beat myself up instead of feeling that God forgives and takes my sins and puts them as far as the east is from the west: infinity where only he lives. A place I can not even imagine.
ReplyDelete