“The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him;”
I love this picture. The woman diving right next to the “no diving” sign just seems to fit the idea of “rebellion.” We do this all the time. How many of us actually follow the posted speed limit? How many of us follow all the rules and details when we’re doing a job we think we can do in our sleep? We often get confident in our own abilities and ignore the little things, but the devil’s in the details so to speak. That’s when we trip up.
And often this happens when we’re trying to follow God as well. God often gives us guidance that makes no sense. He asks us to do things we don’t want to do. He asks us to do things that we honestly don’t think will make any difference. So, we have a decision to make. Are we going to do it God’s way? or are we going to do it our way? Doing it our way is rebellion. We are actively resisting God’s authority in our lives.
Think on that for a moment. If someone actively worked against our position of authority, if they actively resist our direction when we’re in charge, what do we think and feel about that person? We probably want to punish them. We probably have very negative thoughts and feelings about them. If they are our employee, we’re probably going to fire them.
But that’s not what God does. God demonstrates mercy and forgiveness. Now, we can ignore that gift. We can continue in open disobedience. We can refuse to repent. We can continue to do it our way, but we’re going to eventually reap what we sow. How wonderful that even in those moments, God extends an open hand and an open door to turn ourselves around and do it the right way! Let’s not take those gifts for granted. Instead, let’s recognize our rebellious tendencies and turn around and do it His way instead.
Father, thank you that you are merciful and forgiving, even when we do nothing to deserve it. You are a good God all the time. We see your love and your character when we recognize your offer of forgiveness in our lives. Help me to see the areas of my life where I am still operating in rebellion to your way. Help me see where I am ignoring the details, thinking I know what I’m doing. Help me to rely on your guidance and your way. I know your way is always the best way. Your ways are higher than mine. Thank you for leaving the door to your way open for me and for allowing me the opportunity to turn myself around, repent, and do it your way. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Self-love is a trending topic these days. There are so many books out there on loving yourself, accepting yourself, building your self worth, developing self esteem, and on and on and on. The contention is that you can’t love others unless you first love yourself. Society tells us that loving ourselves is the first step to loving others around us. Not only does the world tell us that we have to love ourselves before we can love others, but it tells us that we have to love ourselves before anyone else can love us. None of this is true, of course. You can love others regardless of how you feel about yourself, and others can love you even if you find yourself unlovable. So how do we make sense of it all? We look at what God says about the idea of self-love.
The world defines self-love as ” introspective prioritization of self, aiming at a deeper love and acceptance of self. It is a meditative focus on one’s own positive traits. Self-love seeks freedom from negative thoughts about oneself — whether guilt or insecurity or even awkwardness.” So the danger here is in the inward view. If we focus and prioritize our self, we focus on the wrong thing. We run the risk of being selfish, arrogant, unteachable, dismissive of others. That’s NOT the kind of self-love that God wants us to have. In fact, the Bible strongly warns against this type of self-love. “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy … “(2 Timothy 3:1-2) Pride goes before a fall, and self love can very quickly turn to selfish love if we are focusing solely on ourselve.
Instead, God wants us to love ourselves based on His love for us. Instead of the focus being turned inward, the focus is turned to God. We love ourselves because God first loved us. (1 John 4:19) We love ourselves because God made us in His image. (Genesis 1:27) We have value to God. (Matthew 10:29-31). We recognize how much love God lavishes on us on a daily basis. (1 John 3:1). How can we hate what God loves? We can’t. If God loves us so much that He was willing to die on our behalf, then we must also love ourselves, recognizing in ourselves the qualities that God sees in us.
Satan wants to twist this idea to his own uses, of course. If he can’t get you to think of yourself as worthless or to struggle with depression and lack of worth, he’ll get you to love yourself so much that you excuse sin in your life. You ignore it under the heading of “self love.” “Well,” you say, “that’s just who I am. I accept myself. I’m only human. It’s okay if I make mistakes.” Yes, you are only human. Yes, you will make mistakes. But God does not want us to be content to stay in our sin. He doesn’t want us to justify it or rationalize it away.
God wants us to confront our sin and repent–turn completely away from it. When the woman who committed adultery was brought to Jesus, he said, “Is there no one who condemns you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” He replied, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” ( The story can be found in John 8:1-11.) Jesus loved her. He accepted her. He wanted her to feel freedom from condemnation. It was not His desire for her to feel shame. He simply wanted her to repent and leave her life of sin behind her. Overwhelming feelings of guilt and worthlessness are not from God. God convicts us of our sin so that we see how much our sin does not fit with our position as a child of God. We recognize our sin. We feel sorrow for it. And the end result should be that we cast it aside and follow after God. The purpose is for us to see our true place in Christ and lay aside anything that keeps us from fully living in that place.
If you are accepting your sin, if you are using self-love to say that you are perfect just the way you are even if you are doing things contrary to God’s will, then you’ve fallen into Satan’s trap. The same is true if you believe Satan’s lies about your value and worth to God. Both are positions God does not want you to be in. In his articleDo You Love Yourself Enough, James Beevers says, “True self-love is acceptance of ourselves as redeemed people. Yes, we are loved and accepted, but it is precisely not because we are worthy in ourselves, but because Christ is worthy. ” When we see ourselves the way God sees us, it pours out into the way we live our lives. We take care of our bodies because we recognize that we “are fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:14) We seek to be our best because we “are Christ’s ambassadors.” (2 Corinthians 5:20) We honor God with our attitudes and thoughts and with our actions, loving others as we love ourselves because we recognize not only the honor God gives us through His grace and mercy toward us, but that the likewise extends that same grace and mercy to everyone else who is made in His image.
We can start by looking at how God sees us. Ephesians 1 and 2 are great places to start. Look at these chapters and write down every adjective God uses to describe you. Articles like this one from Joyce Meyer Ministries can give you valuable verses that tell you who you are in Christ and how God sees you once you are united with Christ through His work of redemption in your life. Books like this one from Neil T. Anderson, along with its accompanying devotional, can help as well. As you study these scriptures, begin to speak them out loud over your life. Speak them every morning if you need to. As you begin to speak God’s word over yourself, your image and perception of yourself will change and shift to come into line with God’s truth. Your mind will begin to be renewed (Romans 12:2), and you will begin to experience self-love the way God intended it to be. God’s love for you will flow into you and then flow out of you to others, just as God intended all along.
My parents divorced when I was in elementary school. My mom, my sister, and I moved to Oklahoma, and my dad stayed behind in Alabama. Every summer after that, my sister and I spent our entire school vacation with my dad in Alabama. On Saturdays, we would load up all our laundry and truck down to the local laundromat. Laundromats in the summer in Alabama were only cool (literally) because they had A/C, but this particular one also had a Ms. Pacman machine that gave you unlimited free play. So while the laundry washed and rinsed and spun and dried, my sister and I would compete for high score in Ms. Pacman.
I loved that game! Hand-eye coordination is NOT my forte. I think I only ever got to the pretzel level, but every Saturday I’d give it my best shot. After you passed level 3, a cute little video would appear. The screen would go black. Then Pacman would make his appearance. He would move across the screen from left to right. Next, Ms. Pacman would make her appearance, moving across the screen from right to left. Then both would appear. They’d meet in the middle, a little pink heart would appear, and the words “They Meet” would come up on the screen. To my 9 yr old heart, that was romance! In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve decided to post our “how they met” story.
I ran into my husband between classes in the 9th grade. When I say I “ran into” him, I mean it. Literally. Our school was a warren of hallways and courtyards. Since we only had 7 minutes between classes to get from one place to another, we all learned the fastest route, which often involved cutting across courtyards and in and out of doors. I was leaving the cafeteria to head out to the math hallway and the outdoor foreign language annexes. He was heading across the courtyard and into the doorway of the cafeteria to go who knows where.
And so I ran directly into his stomach. I was a short 5′ 3″ tall at that point in my career. It would take another year to reach my full adult height of 5′ 5 1/2″ and yes, that half inch is incredibly important! My future husband, on the other hand, was topping 6 feet at 14. Our school only housed freshman and sophomores from half of the local district. So it’s understandable that I thought I had just committed a mortal sin: a freshman colliding with a sophomore. After muttering “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” probably a million times, he nodded to me, and off we went. Later, as I was relaying my embarrassing moment to my friends at the lunch table, who should walk through the door but the subject of my story. I ducked down as low as I could go, only to have my best friend Keith say, “Oh, him? I know him. He’s alright.” while frantically waving his arm and calling a cheerful “Hey, Larry!” I could have died on the spot.
Fast forward two years to our Junior year of high school. By this time, I had realized that I hadn’t committed a mortal sin. Turns out this guy was in the same grade as me, even if he was a giant. We recognized each other in passing, always hovering on the edges of each other’s friend group. We had a lot of friends in common but no classes. I had been on the Academic Team for all of middle school and high school. It surprised me a bit when Larry showed up to practice and joined the team. He didn’t seem the type. It wasn’t that I’d heard any actual stories about him doing anything sketchy. I hadn’t even heard rumors. He just totally fit the stereotype of the skater bad boy. Turns out he was neither a bad boy, nor a skater. Go figure! Anyway, Larry joined the team. He never played a game though. He was the only one on the team that seemed to be on perpetual academic probation, but I gathered from watching him during practices that he was highly intelligent and well read even if he did try to maintain casual nonchalance concerning all things academic.
After a match one night, he asked me to hang out and talk. We got into a philosophical discussion on the nature of reality and religious beliefs. It isn’t easy growing up in the Bible belt. You’re either Christian, pretending to be, or a complete outcast. I was a Christian. Larry was undecided. He asked me what I would do if he weren’t a Christian. Would I try to convert him? I told him the gospel, told him he would never know love like God’s love for him, and told him that I wished he would accept Jesus as his savior because life would never be the same once he had. But I also told him that it wasn’t my job to convert him. “It’s my job to plant the seed,” I said. “It’s up to God to water it and make it grow.” Nodding in agreement to that proposal, he promptly asked me to dinner.
My jaw dropped. You have to understand that I was not popular in high school. I’m not even sure the guys in my friend group realized that I was, in fact, a girl. I was usually considered just one of the guys. No one had ever even looked at me as if they found me attractive much less asked me out. On a date. I was checking around me for hidden cameras. I think I even asked him if he was serious or if this was some elaborate joke or prank. He seemed genuinely shocked to find out that I was not only available, but that I had never been asked out before. He said he’d been attracted to me since I ran into him in that hallway. He said he had known since nearly the beginning that I was a Christian, and that because of that he had watched me. He had seen how I treated others. He had seen how I conducted myself. He had watched from a distance for two years to see if I was going to be one of those Christians in name only or a Bible thumper. He had decided that I was neither–that I was the real deal. We dated for two months.
It didn’t take long for me to fall madly in love. I liked every thing about Larry. I liked his sense of humor. I liked the way he thought about things. I liked his witty observations. I even liked the way he smelled. I knew… KNEW…that this was the guy for me. I was absolutely 100% positive we would get married and live happily ever after. I knew what love was, and I knew this was it. He wasn’t so sure. To be fair, he didn’t have any real experience with actual love. Using people for what you want? Sure. But love? Not so much. There was a lot of chemistry between us. He would joke about making a 4 year pact: if we broke up and we weren’t married to other people 4 years after graduation, we would marry each other just for the chemistry. I had laid out my convictions on premarital sex when we began dating. He had agreed to all of them. Not only that, but he had such integrity and character that he held me to them, making sure that he didn’t put me in a position where I might compromise them. Until one night, that is. He asked me to sleep with him. I declined. We weren’t married. It was as simple as that. He honestly considered the prospect, but said he was too young to make momentous decisions like that.
And so, we broke up. It’s as simple as that. But I also felt that he was afraid of the depth of feeling in our relationship. He told me he would always be there for me. “If you ever need anything, a place to stay, whatever, my couch is always open.” We stayed friends in a way. I mean we didn’t talk for a while. You just can’t go from a deep relationship like that to casual chit chat without a period of mourning. We each began dating other people, but he watched out for me. He stuck up for me if any criticisms were voiced in his hearing.
We dated other people, but we always told them about the “couch agreement.” We lost touch after high school graduation. I went to college, and he went who knows where. My friends didn’t know where he’d gone. He hadn’t kept in touch, and his parents had sold their house and moved. We lost touch. I found his number in the high school alumni directory. He was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I was living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. What were the chances? I gave him a call. It was four years later. I was married, and he was engaged.
Every now and then we talked on the phone. He had an open marriage. I told him how stupid I thought that was. My marriage ended after five years. His ended shortly after that. We thought about dating again, but I wanted commitment and monogamy and stability. I had two kids, and I wanted many more. He didn’t want any of those things, so I told him to save us both a lot of heartache and keep walking. We weren’t on the same road. No reason to even try it.
Then came the days of MySpace. We “friended” each other. I remarried. He didn’t. We kept in touch casually. MySpace was replaced by Facebook, and we “friended” each other there, too. I commented on his posts and photos. He occasionally commented on mine. My second marriage wasn’t going much better than my first. I now had 5 girls. Then, Larry said he would be in town for a short period. He wanted to get together and meet my family. My husband was going to be home from his job for the weekend, so I agreed. Larry came over and met the kids. We talked about old times. I fed him a homemade meal (well, semi-homemade…Stauffer’s lasagna). My husband didn’t make it home that night.
You know that nostalgic feeling you get when you meet up with someone you knew a long time ago. There are two possible reactions: 1) You have fond memories of that time of your life, but you’re a completely different person now, and you’re happy about that. 2) You have fond memories of that time of your life, but you suddenly look at life now and wonder what the heck happened! I was in the second category. My marriage was abusive, and I had somehow lost myself. Larry brought back all the memories of the adventurous, confident woman I used to be, and I missed her. I made the decision to end my marriage. When Larry found out, he threw his hat in the ring. He said he’d only come into town to check on me and make sure I was okay and being taken care of.
I asked him how he even knew there was anything wrong. “I know you,” he said. “It wasn’t anything you said. You never post dirty laundry. It was what you didn’t say. I read between the lines.” He told me what a mistake he had made 17 years ago, and how he hoped to have a second chance. He told me he had realized that all the women he had dated in the past had been an attempt to recreate what we had and that he figured it would be better just to try again with me. So we began dating again. About a year after we began dating, on Christmas Eve we got into another philosophical conversation about religion. I laid out the gospel story again and told him why I believed. I told him that I loved him so much I couldn’t imagine spending eternity without him and that I wished he would meet Jesus, really get to know him, so that he could be saved. He told me I was crazy. I promised I would never pressure him or bring up our difference in religious beliefs unless he asked me. I had stayed true to my word. When we got home, he proposed. We got married a year later on the first day of Spring.
Now, I just need to put a disclaimer out here. If you’re a Christian, it is unwise to marry a non-Christian. It hardly ever works out. It takes a special act of grace, I think. A non-Christian spouse is more likely to pull you down than you are to pull them up. It’s one of those things where you don’t know how it will turn out, but honestly, when you’re talking about something as weighty as your eternal destiny do you really want to chance it working out badly? I don’t think so. I married Larry even though he was a non-Christian because I knew that he was fundamentally honest, that he possessed integrity, and because my previous spouses had both claimed to be Christian and been anything but when it came to our marriage.
We went into this marriage with the understanding that the only way either of us was leaving it was going to be in a body bag. We even joked that we might be the one who put the other person in it, but we wouldn’t be filing for divorce. Larry insisted that he didn’t want me to compromise my relationship with God on account of him. When my ex-husband stole my Bible, Larry bought me a new one. He took me to church every week. He even agreed to attend with me. So long as I promised not to try to convert him.
I prayed faithfully for his salvation. I had been praying for his salvation for nearly 20 years at that point, but now I had even more of the Word I could stand on. I stood on the Scripture verses that promised salvation for my household and that an unbelieving husband could be won over by the righteous conduct of his believing wife. I prayed that he would see Jesus in me. I prayed that he would meet Jesus, that he would really get to see Him for who He is. So often we make decisions about Jesus based on our bad interactions with people. People are broken. They don’t always follow Jesus the way they should. They don’t always give a good picture of Jesus, even if they are claiming to be Christians. Too many people think they know Jesus. Too many people think that they know what Christianity is all about when they really have no clue. Too many people are walking around claiming to represent Christ when in truth they don’t know Christ any better than the people they are supposed to be witnessing to.
When I was 20 weeks pregnant with our first son, Larry named him Enoch. He said the name just came to him. I laughed. It’s a biblical name. Enoch walked with God. He was so righteous and so close to God that he didn’t die. God took him. Larry didn’t even know Enoch was in the Bible. When I showed him the story in Genesis, he thought it was pretty cool. He decided to keep the name, even if it was in the Bible. When I was six months pregnant, Larry came home excited. He told me he needed to speak with me right then. We had guests, so he pulled me into the bathroom. I was kind of scared. He told me that he had met Jesus. He said he knew that Jesus was real. He asked me to pray the sinner’s prayer with him so that he could be saved.
So my husband became a Christian. I’d love to say that things have been perfect every day since, but that would be a lie. We’ve had good times. We’ve had bad times. We’ve fought more about religion after we shared religious beliefs than we ever did before. We struggle with communication like tons of other married couples. We hurt each other. We fall short. We’ve gone through trials that other married couples have never had to go through: like the mental health issues of my daughter and the foster care system. But through it all, we’ve stayed true to our promise that neither of us was leaving this marriage outside of a body bag. I can’t begin to tell you what that promise has meant to the both of us. There are times in a marriage when you have nothing left. There are no more butterflies. There are no more nice feelings even. You aren’t “in love” anymore. If you have nothing more to stand on than emotions, your marriage is over. In those times, we stood on the love we had promised each other. Love is a choice, not a feeling, and it was this fact that got us through some of our darkest days. We knew that we were meant to be, so if we couldn’t make it work with each other, then we couldn’t make it work with anyone.
This past month our church has been doing a sermon series on marriage. My husband and I have had some good conversations thanks to the series. We’ve come to some understanding about our spiritual gifts, which are on opposite ends of the spectrum. We’ve figured out how important it is to be in unity and how to be in unity when you still disagree on some things. The series culminated with a vow renewal ceremony for any couples that wanted to renew their vows. I wasn’t sure he’d want to. We’ve had some hard years. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that if he had known then what he knew now, he might not have wanted to marry me. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he felt that way. So it was incredibly romantic and a wonderful gift when he assured me he had made the right choice then and he would be happy to do it again. The week before the service, my husband found out he’d have to work that day. We made a plan for him to Duo chat with me during the service so we could still renew our vows, even if we didn’t participate with everyone else. The Thursday before, he got news that he WOULD be home! So Sunday morning, we stood with all the other couples and renewed our vows.
That’s our story. At least the beginning of it anyway. As it stands right now, we are madly in love again. We have two wonderful sons: Ezra-James and Enoch. We have five wonderful daughters: Gillian, Arwen, Inara, Kaia, and Avalon. My husband introduces them all as his own. He is proud to tell everyone who will listen that we are high school sweethearts. He says I was his first love. We will still have struggles. This journey through foster care isn’t easy. Every time we turn around there is something trying to pull us apart. But we stand in faith and say that we will make it through. We will be stronger on the other side. This is just the beginning of our story….
This weekend I was invited to a spa/beauty party. You know, one of those parties sponsored by a cosmetic company so you can test their products in the hope that you will want to purchase them. There’s nothing wrong with these parties as long as you don’t feel pressured to purchase anything. They’re a nice break, and some pampering is good for all of us, but it got me thinking about beauty and our pursuit of it.
As a woman, I struggle with my appearance–how I see myself. I’m hypercritical of my skin tone, my flaws, and my weight. I’m fairly certain that when I look in a mirror what I see and what others see is drastically different. I think this is a common struggle among women. It’s hard to weigh what society says about beauty and what society says makes you beautiful against your own values and ideas about what is beautiful and what is not. The worldwide cosmetic industry is a multi-billion dollar industry per year! Per year! The average American woman will spend $300,000 on cosmetic products in her lifetime. That’s a lot of feeling like you need cosmetics to make you more beautiful.
No one likes to see the effects of age. All of us want to feel beautiful. It’s important to us as women to be beautiful. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that in general, but I do think that a lot of us fall into the enemy’s trap by thinking there is only one way to be beautiful and by pursuing things in the hope of being beautiful that make beauty an idol in our lives. Beauty can be only skin deep, and skin ages. It wrinkles. Beauty fades. If all we have is surface beauty, we’ll have to continually pursue more products and more drastic means of maintaining that surface beauty in order to be happy.
But God doesn’t look at the outward appearance, He looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and the Bible has some interesting things to say about what makes a woman beautiful. Beauty is a characteristic of God. God is the ultimate definition of beauty. It’s a little odd to think about: God being beautiful. After all, God doesn’t have a body like we do. Nevertheless, God is beautiful. We are created in the image of God; therefore, it makes sense that we have the potential to be beautiful as well. But not beautiful as the world knows it. Beautiful as God knows it.
So what makes us beautiful to God? Our hearts and our attitudes. 1 Peter 3:3-6 (MSG) tells us: “What matters is not your outer appearance—the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes—but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way”. Inner beauty has a way of radiating to others. When you have an inner beauty, people remember you as beautiful. They want to be around you. They are attracted to you. Often, they will describe you as beautiful to others, even if you are not “beautiful” by any kind of worldly standard.
Inner beauty comes from focusing on God. Psalm 34:5 (NIV) says that “those who look to him [God] are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” When we look to God, when we spend time with Him, when we draw near to Him, something happens. There’s an outward evidence that we have been with Him. Think of Moses. When he spent 40 days on Mount Sinai talking to God, his face glowed. There was outward evidence of his time with God! The same will happen to us. Our face may not glow literally, but there will be outward evidence of the beauty of God on us as we spend time with Him.
When we grow closer to God, we become more and more like Him. That means we gain more and more of His attributes in our own lives. Beauty is an attribute of God, so we can’t help but become more beautiful as we become more like God. 1 Timothy 2:9-10 (MSG) encourages us in this way: “And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.” Doing the work of God makes us beautiful. My family has been going through a very difficult time recently. Out of desperation, I pressed in to God, knowing that the only way to make it through this valley was to make it through with God at my side. A woman at church who knew what we were going through approached me one day and gave me one of the best compliments I’ve ever received. She said, “You look so beautiful. I can see God all over you!” Wow. That is truly the desire of my heart, that when people look at me, they might see more of God.
Job 40:10 (NIV) tells us to “adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty.” The only way to do that is to press in to God, until His glory and splendor rub off on us! When our life honors God, His beauty shines through us. We are his masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10 NLT). He created us in His image, and that makes us beautiful!
“Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this: This new plan I’m making with Israel isn’t going to be written on paper, isn’t going to be chiseled in stone; This time “I’m writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts.” He concludes, I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins. Once sins are taken care of for good, there’s no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.“
Reading the Old Testament laws concerning sacrifices to be offered to God is daunting to say the least. When I read over these rules and prescriptions I am overwhelmed by the sacrifices required to pay the penalty for my sin, and that payment was only temporary. It had to be paid over and over and over again. Reading the laws gives me a greater awareness of just how far I miss the mark of what it means to be holy. It points to my need for something more than sacrifice to make me holy and acceptable to God. I will never be able to follow those laws to the fullest requirement. I will never be able to offer enough sacrifices to pay the penalty in full.
But, thankfully, I don’t have to. God didn’t give us the law to make us holy. He gave us the law to show us our true condition–just how far from the mark we are. And He didn’t give us the ritual of sacrificial offerings to pay the penalty of our sin. He gave it to us to show us just how much sin costs and just how woefully unprepared we are to pay that cost. He wanted us to look for more. He wanted us to look to Him for help. So God gave us Jesus. In Jesus, the debt is paid in full. The sin problem is taken care of. Jesus is the ultimate solution!
Because Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to pay the debt, we no longer have to try. Because Jesus’ death and resurrection cleanse us from our sin and allow the Holy Spirit to live inside our hearts, it’s no longer up to us to be holy enough. God makes us holy. He writes the law on our hearts. He puts His Spirit in the same hearts to make sure that we can be holy in His eyes. It’s no longer about us….about our sin…about our lack…about our falling short. When God looks at us, all He can see is Jesus. And Jesus is more than enough!
Father, thank you for your unfailing love. Thank you for grace that looked down and saw just how far I missed the mark, had compassion on me, and provided a way. Thank you for your son, Jesus, and for his death that paid my sin debt in full. Thank you that you provided the ultimate solution to my problem of sin–a problem I would never be able to overcome on my own. And thank you for your Holy Spirit living in me, making me holy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
What do you think of when you hear the word “Discipline”? If you’re like most people, the image isn’t a positive one. Many of us associate discipline with negative thoughts or feelings. It’s punishment, right? But the word discipline means more than just “punishment” or “negative consequences.” It means much more. Discipline comes from the Latin word “discipulus” which means student. It’s where we also get the word “disciple.” The disciples were people who followed the teachings of Jesus. They were His students. Jesus taught them everything they needed to know to be obedient to God, to live life in a way that pleased God, to do what God created them to do.
When we think about discipline for athletes, we think about training. They train their bodies to do what they want them to do. They eat certain things and don’t eat others. They follow the guidelines of their coach and their sport to perform to the highest level. Sometimes, their muscles might ache and be sore. It’s a small price to pay for the success of victory, but it’s a price nonetheless. Getting up early, training hard, not eating everything you want because it all affects your performance–these are all some of the sacrifices an athlete might make to be the best. There are times when this must feel uncomfortable, maybe even painful. But the focus isn’t on the temporary pain and discomfort. The focus is on the ultimate goal: victory.
Discipline is teaching. It’s showing someone by example as well as by verbal directions how to do something. In this case, it’s showing someone how to live life to the fullest. When we discipline our children as parents, we are teaching them how to live life. We are instructing them in making wise choices, serving God, following Jesus, treating others well, and teaching them all the life skills they need to be mature, successful adults. Yes, this teaching is going to involve consequences–both positive and negative consequences–but that isn’t the bulk of what discipline should entail.
When we approach parenting and discipline with this mindset, we focus more on making sure our children understand the ultimate goal: a victorious Christian life. We approach our rule making, our family culture, our teachable moments, and our punishments from the standpoint of communicating the skills necessary to have that victorious Christian life. If we do this correctly, our kids will see the end goal, desire to achieve it, and cooperate with us in getting there. We don’t need blind obedience from our children. What we need are children who agree that a victorious Christian life is so desirable that they are willing to undergo temporarily uncomfortable circumstances and correction in order to achieve it.
So how do we get there? Well, the first step is making sure that our Christian values and beliefs are front and center in our everyday lives. We can’t expect our children to value what we don’t value ourselves. We can’t be hypocritical, correcting them for sins we are unwilling to face in ourselves. It means we have to live out the things we profess to believe. Our children need to see us putting God first. Our children need to see us being obedient to what God asks of us. Our children need to see us respecting the authorities God has placed over our lives in our churches and in our government and at our jobs. And yes, our children need to see us handle correction well. They need to see us have a good attitude when someone corrects us or gives us constructive criticism. And when we fall short, our children need to see us model repentance for them. They need to see us admit our failure to God and, if necessary, to others. They need to see us ask for forgiveness.
Discipline is about modeling the behavior we want to see in our kids. Some parents think that asking their children for forgiveness when they do something wrong or admitting their own faults will somehow make their children not respect them as much. The exact opposite is true. Children have more respect for parents that admit their mistakes than they do for parents who act as if they never struggle or never fail. We all want successful children. Let’s reframe the way we look at discipline to make sure that our focus is on teaching our kids how to be disciples of Christ, rather than on blind obedience and rule-following.
“Since we are now joined to Christ, we have been given the treasures of redemption by his blood—the total cancellation of our sins—all because of the cascading riches of his grace.”
Have you ever seen those shows where someone wins the big prize? Maybe they win the lottery or a large amount of cash. It falls down from the ceiling or they throw it up into the air and watch it rain down on them. The picture is one of a abundance of wealth. It’s countless riches. So much money that you can treat it casually by throwing it around without worry.
How often do we think of God’s grace in those terms? Do you think about the grace of God as a treasure that is so abundant in your life that you can swim in it, throw it up in the air, cover everything with it? When we are joined to Christ, we are entitled to receive the inheritance He earned. Christ did the work on the cross. He has an inheritance of heavenly wealth, an abundance of blessings, that He has received from God. When we accept Christ as our Savior, when we join our lives to Him, we become co-heirs to His inheritance. Everything Christ has, we also have.
Our sins are completely gone. They are cancelled. The debt is paid in full. So all that is left for us is grace and abundant blessings. God promises to rain down abundant blessings and favor on our lives as we follow after Him. As we become more and more like Christ, we experience more and more of God’s abundance in our lives. It’s like winning the grand prize! We have eternal life! We have forgiveness of sins! We have every spiritual blessing! We have it all…cascading riches as a result of God’s immeasurable grace toward us.
Father, thank you that you are an abundant God. You have blessed us with everything we could ever need to live the life you want for us. There is no spiritual blessing that you have neglected to give us. You have forgiven our sins. You have given us favor. We have the cascading riches of your grace raining down on us every second of every minute of every day of our lives if we will just stretch out our hands and grasp hold of it by faith. Thank you, Father, for your blessings, for your provision, and for your grace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“Then I let it all out; I said, “I’ll make a clean breast of my failures to God.” Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.”
There are many times in my life when I feel pressure. There is pressure to succeed. Pressure to make something of my life. And, yes, the pressure of guilt as well. But God didn’t create me to carry a huge weight. He didn’t design me to live under the pressure of guilt.
When I put my trust in God, when I believe that His Word is true and that He loves me, I can cast all my cares on Him. I can trust that God will handle the pressures of life. I can trust that God will lead me down a path that will give me a successful, fulfilling life. AND…I can even trust God to forgive my sins, erase my failures, and remove the pressure of guilt.
David found this truth. When he confessed his sin before God, he immediately felt the release of all that weight he was carrying around. God is faithful and just. He has promised that our sins are forgiven if we are in Christ. He has also promised to remove that weight of condemnation from our shoulders if we confess our sins.
Are you carrying a weight of guilt today? Confess it to God. Hand it over to Him. You were never meant to carry that weight. God is standing ready to forgive your sins and remove that weight from your shoulders.
Father, Thank you that you forgive my sins. Thank you that if I confess my feelings of guilt and shame to you, you remove them. You cleanse me. You didn’t design me to carry the weight of sin and guilt. So I give it to you, God. I trust you to forgive me. I trust you to remove this weight from my shoulders and to lead me down the path you have chosen for me, where I will have a successful, fulfilling, and amazing life! In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The Garden of Eden. What picture comes to mind when you hear those words? If you’re like me, you probably picture the most beautiful place you can imagine. Lots of trees. Lots of animals. Maybe you think of Adam and Eve. Maybe you wonder what it was like to live before sin was in the world. What was it like not to have to deal with sickness or death? What was it like to walk with God? What was it like to talk with Him like you would talk to your closest friend? Perhaps this imaginative exercise fills your heart with longing for a simpler time….a simpler place.
When God created Adam and Eve, everything was perfect. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap our minds around the word “perfect” when we think about this story. We know that in just a few verses Eve and then Adam will sin against God. They will open the door for all kinds of evil things to enter the world. They will hand over their dominion to Satan himself. But “perfect” doesn’t mean flawless. It means complete. When God created Adam and Eve, the world was finally complete. That’s why He rested on the seventh day. There was no more work that needed to be done. Everything was ready.
Adam was created in God’s image. As a man, Adam reflected certain characteristics and qualities of God that only a man could reflect. He was a provider. He was a protector. He took care of things. It was his job to keep things running smoothly. It was his job to rule over the animals. It was his job to look after the garden, to work it and tend it. Adam was in charge of things. He answered to God. And when Adam had a question about something, he got his answer directly from the Creator. He got his answer from God. God was his source of information, and his source of truth.
Eve was also created in God’s image. As a woman, Eve reflected certain characteristics and qualities of God that only a woman could reflect. She was a helper. She was a responder. She helped Adam to take care of things. With her help, Adam could do his job better. Eve was created inside the garden, instead of outside of it like Adam. She answered to Adam and then to God. And when Eve had a question about something, she could get an answer from Adam or from God. God was her ultimate source of information and truth. It was Adam who passed along the rule about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That command was given before Eve was created.
Man and woman, husband and wife, together as a unit brought glory to God and reflected God’s glory to all of creation. Just as the trinity functions in perfect harmony, with Jesus and the Holy Spirit submissive to God the Father, so too did Adam and Eve function in perfect harmony, submissive to God the Father. But then, Satan showed up. And from the very start, he targeted his attack not only at God’s overall plan and authority, but also sex-specifically at Adam and Eve’s strengths and weaknesses.
Satan spoke to Eve. He knew that God created Adam first. He knew that the leadership hierarchy put God first, then Adam, and then Eve, but he refused to acknowledge God’s plan and authority. Instead, he targeted his appeal at Eve. We don’t know where Adam was when this conversation took place. Maybe he was separated from Eve for a moment, or maybe he watched passively as his wife spoke to the snake. What we know is that Eve spoke to the snake. And the snake appealed to Eve’s responsive nature. He responded to her created strength of relationship. You see Eve was created to be relational. So when he spoke to her, he appealed to the need for community and companionship within her.
Eve listened, and then she made a choice. She chose to not ask Adam for direction. She chose to not ask God for direction. She chose to be her own source of information and truth. When Eve ate from the fruit, she disconnected herself from God, and plugged into herself. Then, it was Adam’s turn. He abdicated his authority to Eve. He didn’t check with God for direction. Instead, he chose to plug into himself as the source of information and truth.
Sin brought what God knew that it would: shame and guilt. So when God came looking for Adam and Eve, they did what we all still do. They hid. They hid because they were afraid. They were guilty. They felt shame. God knew what had happened. Nothing surprised God. God knew the minute He placed the tree in the garden and allowed Adam and Eve the ability to chose that this could and would happen. Then God asks Adam and Eve a question: Where are you?
When you read the story, what tone of voice do you hear God using? Do you hear Him as angrily demanding an accounting for their action? Or do you hear Him as a father whose child has run away? Do you hear the sorrowful plea in His voice asking where His child is and why they would choose to be somewhere other than home with Him? How you answer those questions will say a lot about the picture of God that you have.
Adam and Eve emerge. They have tried to fix the situation themselves with fig leaves sown to cover themselves. Adam tells God that he hid because he was afraid and because he was naked. And God asks question number two: Who told you that you were naked? God knew the answer to this question to. And again, the tone of voice you hear when God asks this question will reveal a lot about how you see God. God knew that Adam and Eve felt shame as a result of their sin, and He was pointing out to them that as the source of all truth, what anyone else had to say about their worth, about their value, about their guilt or innocence, about their shame, etc. didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered is what He said about them. After all, He had created them. He had given them value….and Satan had stolen it away.
Now, we know the rest of the story. The snake is cursed first. Then Eve. Then Adam. Their curses are sex-specific. Eve will have pain in her relationships. Her fundamental created purpose had been damaged. It will now be tainted with sin. She will struggle to control things. She will want to take authority for herself. She will be tempted by an overpowering, pathological need for intimacy that will have the potential to wreck havoc on her relationships and her sense of self-worth. Adam would have pain in his capability. His fundamental created purpose to provide and protect had been damaged. It will now be tainted by sin. He will struggle to provide for his family. He will struggle to protect his family. He will struggle with being passive when he should be a leader. He will fail to take control. His servant leadership will now be tainted by the need to dominate. He will possess the potential to abuse. But God wasn’t punishing Adam and Eve with this. He wasn’t arbitrarily making their lives difficult because they made a mistake. He was simply telling them how sin would affect their lives from this point forward. Sin taints everything. It can’t be put back in the box and locked away. This was the consequence of their choice because this is what sin does…it corrupts everything it touches. It twists its intended purpose.
But God had a plan, even then. A plan that would allow Adam and Eve to escape the effects of sin. The seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, would set things right. He would take dominion back from Satan. He would bridge the gap between mankind and God. He would undo the effects of sin. God not only gave a future promise of ultimate grace, He gave them an immediate example of it. God made them skins. He covered their sin and shame for them. Sin was the problem. God’s grace was the solution.
When we come into relationship with Jesus, we can go back to the garden. We can unplug from ourselves as the source of truth and plug back into God. We don’t have to hide in shame. We get our information, our truth, our value, etc. directly from the Creator. We are washed clean of our sin. When we allow Christ and the Holy Spirit to operate fully in our lives, our intended created purpose is restored to what it was supposed to be. We can experience a bit of Eden again, even in the midst of our sin. That is what hope is all about.
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
Have you ever left a red shirt or a red sock in your load of white laundry? When the load is done running, you’re left with a bunch of pink shirts, socks, and underwear! No amount of bleaching after the fact will remove the evidence of your mistake. Sin is a lot like that. When we sin, it doesn’t just affect us. It affects everything around us. Everything we touch becomes tainted by the consequences of our sin. Like that red sock in the white wash, we leave everything pink.
But God doesn’t want us living “pink” lives. He wants us clean and pure. He wants us bright white. So when God promises to wash away our sins, he means completely. And unlike that red sock in the load of white laundry, no evidence of our sin will remain. When God washes us clean, He removes all traces of our sin. There’s no more evidence that it ever took place!
God doesn’t remove the consequences from our sin. We may still have to live through those, but He does remove the stain that it caused on our lives. The more we allow God to constantly wash us and change us, the whiter we become and the less we tolerate sin in our lives. The less we tolerate sin in our own lives….the less our sin has the chance to damage others. It’s the blood of Jesus that washes us as white as snow. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit that can help keep us this way! So let God take care of your “dirty laundry”. If you do, you’ll see evidence that His divine stain removing, atoning blood will wash away any trace of the stain sin left on your life.
Father, I thank you that you make all things new. I thank you that through your atoning sacrifice on the cross, I can have all the effects of my sin washed away. I no longer have to try to clean myself up and live a “pink” life. I can never do a good enough job cleaning myself up. I need you, Father. I need your cleansing to remove the stains sin has left on me. Thank you, Father, that you are more than willing to continually cleanse me from sin and that your Holy Spirit is available within me to keep me from continuing in my sin. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
A Beautiful Mess 