Warning: Fairly long post coming because I am passionate
about this issue.
Satan likes to feed us all kinds of lies. I know in my personal life, every time I
screw up he whispers the same things to me over and over again.
“Amanda, you are so
worthless.”
“How dare you call
yourself a Christian?”
“You will taint those good believers over there.”
“You can’t be forgiven.”
“This is all your
fault.”
Sound familiar? Well
here is what I have learned. When we
enter the battle grounds of our minds when satan is feeding us lie after lie, our
choice weapon has to be our Bible. God
does not ever lie, and He comes through on every single promise He makes.
God told us that if we confess our sins we will be washed
white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). Jesus paid
the ultimate price, and it is His pure, sinless life, and pouring out of His
blood that cleanses us (Matthew 26:28).
1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
I also want to hit on the topic of not being “worthy” of
being called a Christian. Romans 3:23
says “For all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.” 1 John 1:10
tells us that we are lying if we say we have not sinned.
If we have sinned even one time,
then we are not righteous, and we cannot go to Heaven on our own. That’s where grace comes in. Grace is getting something we don’t
deserve. We don’t deserve to go to
Heaven, or to even be forgiven for that matter, but God loves us too much. He can’t stand the idea of eternity without
us, so he sacrificed His only son for us (John 3:16). However, it still does not mean we deserve
it.
To receive grace, we only have to do
one simple thing. Come humbly to the
feet of Jesus.
Isaiah 30:18 “the Lord
longs to be gracious to you; therefore He will rise up to show you compassion.” Accept his grace, and move on for the plans
that He has in your life.
Two other verses were shared with me
that deal with grace and the kingdom of Heaven.
“9Do you not
know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, Neither fornicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10nor thieves, nor
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the
kingdom of God. 11And such were some of
you. But you were washed, but you were
sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the
Spirit of our God.”
1
Corinthians 6:9-11
“3For we
ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving carious lusts
and pleasures, living for malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 4But when the kindness and love of God our
Savior towards man appeared, 5not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ our Savior, 7that having been justified by His grace we should become
heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
Titus
3:3-7
We have the choice to let the enemy
stand in the way of our relationship with Jesus, or we can choose to rebuke him
in the name of Jesus. If we choose the
latter he has to flee. He only has as
much power over you as you allow. Jesus
loves you and would trade all of creation just to be with you (Isaiah
43:1-4). He’s offered up his grace and
mercy to you. Will you take it?
Initially I was not going to write another post for a week or so, this started out as a reply to someone, and I was just so passionate about it, that I could not keep it short. I guess there are exceptions to every rule when it comes to taking a break. I do pray that everyone comes to see that there is no way we can do this on our own, that we are so unworthy, but that is really one of the beautiful things about being a Christian, we were never told we had to be worthy, but that we would be made worthy because of what Jesus did for us out of love.
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