Friday Devotional…

SCRIPTURE: Read - 1 John 1:9, Psalm 103:8-12

THOUGHTS: We’ve all messed up right? Let’s be honest. We’ve all messed up AND continue to mess up. It’s who we are as humans. We live in a world that is fallen because of the presence of sin, and we were born with a nature that is prone to sin. Think about it. No one has to teach a baby how to be selfish-it’s natural for them. As kids, no one had to teach us to lie to our parents when we were caught doing something wrong.

But now that we’re older we’ve raised the stakes right? We’ve outgrown selfishness with toys in a playpen and white lies about feeding our vegetables to the dog. The things we often get into now carry so much more weight and consequences. Whether it’s the language we use when we’re around our friends, the things we look at, the way we treat people, the things we put in our bodies, the way we talk about people behind their backs, the music we listen to, or the way we treat our parents, our sins have gotten “bigger” as we’ve grown. But Jesus is bigger than our sin.

Clayton King said it this way, “God isn’t intimidated by our sin.” The truth is God created everything that we know to be. He stretched out the skies, carved out the oceans, and formed each one of us. He is the God of infinite worth, and he’s not scared of our sin-he existed before sin even entered the world. So when we sin, he doesn’t look at us in complete shock, disbelief, and horror. He looks at us with compassion. Scripture tells us that while Jesus was on Earth, he was tempted in every way. We don’t serve a God who is unable to sympathize with our needs, but instead, he knows what kind of struggles we go through (Hebrews 4:15).

The scripture verses for today talk about God’s complete forgiveness of our sins. He is able to totally wash us clean. He says that if we confess our sins to him, he will forgive us-completely. So if you’re a Christ-follower, if you’ve asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, know that you are totally forgiven. God isn’t keeping some secret scorecard against you. And if God isn’t holding our sin against us, then we shouldn’t be holding it against ourselves.

This isn’t a license to sin. The last thing God wants us to do is to abuse his forgiveness. The Bible makes it clear that anyone who deliberately keeps on sinning after accepting Jesus is in some serious trouble (Hebrews 10:26-27). But this is a license to not carry around the baggage and the guilt that comes as a result of sin. The point is we do some messed up stuff, but God says that if we truly repent, he will throw our sin away as far as the East is from the West-he won’t treat us as our sins deserve. So don’t walk around crying about the sin you committed in your past. Be confident in the fact that God’s love is bigger than our sin, and that he has made you spotless if you ask.

But that’s not where it ends. You need to leave that sin. God loves us enough to accept us the way we are, he’ll forgive us of any sin when we have a truly repentant heart, but he loves us enough to not let us stay the same. He wants us to change, to live a life that honors him. So don’t live with the pain of yesterday’s mistakes. Allow God to forgive you completely, and then, follow after him with everything you have.

PRAYER: If you’ve never asked God to forgive you of your sins, and you feel like you should, confess your sins to him and ask him to make you clean. Pray that God will help remove any baggage or guilt that you might have over your past mistakes. Pray that God will help you live a life free of those sins that honors him.

Andrew Sentell has just joined the IGNITE staff full-time. Before joining the staff he served as the worship leader for Student Ministry at NewSpring. His role with in IGNITE is to take some of the responsibilities that were not being done well (I couldn’t get everything done) and make them great. Andrew is getting married in October and is in the middle of settling into a new house as well.