Life Changing

"Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods. Therefore I will deliver you no more.  “Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in your time of distress.” And the children of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned! Do to us whatever seems best to You; only deliver us this day, we pray.” So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord. And His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel."

~Judges 10:13-16

I have not always been a Christian and I've done a lot of things I regret. Even after becoming a Christian, I haven't always gotten everything right, which I regret even more. Not being a Christian and messing up might hurt the ones we love, but life goes on. However, when Christians mess up, God is the One we hurt. I don't mean things like losing our temper with our spouse but sins that lead us away from God, church, and prayer. Sins that can put our souls in danger. I've seen it happen many times when people commit to the Lord outwardly, but inwardly, they're really just going through the motions. 

The Israelites had a long history of missing the mark with God. Time after time, God delivered them from the messes they made and forgave them for following people rather than Him. He forgave them for worshipping gods made by the hand of man, yet they couldn't quite hold on to their confessions of faith. As soon as God straightened out their lives and delivered them from slavery or oppression, they went right back to their old way of life. How many of us are like that?

"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death (2 Corinthians 7:10)."

The word 'repent' means to turn away from our sins and go in a new direction. Repentance leads to salvation, and salvation delivers us from our old way of living. It should be obvious that our old way of living wasn't working or we wouldn't feel the need for change, yet we continue to turn back to that old life. Why? Because the desire to change has to be an inward desire to live according to God's will and not our own. God isn't a get out of jail free card that we can use when life gets out of control. 

Giving lip service to God doesn't work. I know someone who is in and out of church regularly. She complains about her life and declares she's changed every time she comes to church. In the meantime, she's living with someone she's not married to, getting drunk and high on weekends, and then takes to social media to play the "no matter how hard I try, nothing works out, feel sorry for me card." Real repentance causes an inward change that leads to an outward expression of that change. When Jesus forgave the woman accused of adultery, He didn't tell her to go back home and enjoy her life, He told her to "go and sin no more" (John 8).

Like the children of Israel, we aren't always going to get it right, but God isn't looking at us the way we look at others, or even ourselves. When God looks at us, He looks through the blood of Jesus. If we've truly repented and turned from our sins, the blood has completely washed them away. If we've only given lip service with our own agenda, there's nothing covering our sins, and God sees them all. We can fool most of the people most of the time, but we can't fool God any time.

"You will never succeed in life if you try to hide your sins. Confess them and give them up; then God will show mercy to you (Proverbs 28:13)."

Read Judges 7-9

A Year of Blessings by Marie McGaha ©2018