God of Second Chances, thank you for your love and forgiveness. As you have forgiven me, help me to forgive myself. Let me leave my guilt behind and start this week with a clean slate.
Parents spend a great deal of time and effort disciplining children. Since we are God’s children, we need to understand that He, too, will discipline us. Because a loving parent lets his children learn from their mistakes, God’s discipline will often involve allowing us to suffer the consequences of our sins. If we repent of our sin, God forgives us, but God’s forgiveness does not free us from the adverse effects of our actions. Sin has repercussions and forgiveness does not shield us from its impact.
In spite of knowing everything about us, God loves us. He knows our weakness and failures, our flaws and sins. He even knows our deepest darkest secrets. And yet, God loves us simply because He made us and we are His. This knowledge of God’s grace truly is too great for me to comprehend! Thank you, God, for loving your children no matter how unlovable we may happen to be.
How unutterably sweet is the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us completely. No talebearer can inform on us; or enemy can make an accusation stick; no forgotten skeleton can come tumbling out of some hidden closet to abash us and expose our past; no unsuspected weakness in our characters can come to light to turn God away from us, since He knew us utterly before we knew Him and called us to Himself in the full knowledge of everything that was against us. [A. W. Tozer, from “The Knowledge of the Holy”]
It’s amazing how easy it is for us to rationalize our failings and deceive ourselves when we sin. We justify our bad behavior by telling ourselves things like the following: That wasn’t really gossip, I didn’t have time, they really didn’t need my help, no one cares about a little thing like that, I was too tired, I was only following orders, it was the other person’s fault, no one will ever know, everyone else did, he made me, or it was just too difficult. We can fool others and delude ourselves but there is one being we can’t deceive: God! He knows everything about us and, like any good parent, He can recognize an excuse for what it is: a way to avoid accountability for our poor behavior.
Lord, please forgive me when I sin and don’t let me lie to myself or you about it.
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself. [Henry Ward Beecher]
If He can forgive us and throw our sins away, why can’t we? We need to sweep away the cobwebs of the past. Let’s discard any regrets that are cluttering our lives, toss out any negative attitudes that don’t fit our faith, and wash away any guilt that is soiling our souls. It’s time to make room in our lives for God’s love and peace.
In 2 Samuel, Nathan comes to David and tells him a story about a villainous man who has taken a neighbor’s lamb for himself when he had lambs enough of his own. “This man deserves to die!” is David’s quick condemnation. Nathan then points out that the villainous man is David himself, who has both killed his neighbor and taken his neighbor’s wife in adultery. We’re often like David in that it’s easy for us to see the sins of others and yet not recognize our own flaws and offenses. Lord, keep us from judging the faults of others when what we really need to do is acknowledge our own transgressions.
