1 John 1:9 "Confessing Sin"

We live in a fallen, broken world, we are constantly surrounded by evil influences, and we are weak willed people; so, even though we believe in Jesus and have accepted His death as the punishment for our sin, and have turned to Him for forgiveness and new life, we still struggle with sin.

Because we still struggle with sin, God made a continuing provision for sin. The Bible tells us, “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”(1 John 1:9).

Jesus has already paid the penalty for sin –in that sense, God made provision for our forgiveness once and for all, and for all time. The penalty has been been paid, and we have been forgiven. Yet, Christians are specifically instructed to confess sin as it occurs.

There is a very good reason God wants us to confess our sin. It’s because unconfessed sin turns into baggage that we have to carry around with us.

When we sin and do not confront it, and do not repent, and refuse to confess it, we end up with a load of guilt and shame and bitterness and anxiety and fear. God doesn’t want that for us. God wants us to unload those kinds of burdens. We unload by confession and repentance.

God doesn’t need to hear our confession so that He knows what we’ve been up to. He already knows every wrong thing and every right thing we’ve ever thought or said or done. Our confession doesn’t change God, and it doesn’t change God’s mind, and it doesn’t change God’s opinion of us. Our confession changes us.

When we are humbly confessing our sin to God, something happens. In order to truly confess, we must examine ourselves. In order to realistically examine ourselves, we need to quit pretending to be people we’re not –we need to let our defenses down, we need to take our masks off. In order to confess, we need to be brutally honest about ourselves before God. And it is in the context of humble honesty, with no pretense and no defense that a relationship with God begins to develop. And the relationship is what God desires.

#by-his-stripes #ByHisStripes

1 John 3:1 "God Loves Me"

I believe that God loves me. I know it is a simple thought, but it has profound implications.

How can He love me in a personal way if He doesn’t know me in a personal way. God knows me.
That’s a thought that is comforting and frightening all at once, isn’t it? I’m sure we all have a few things in our past that we’d rather not parade out in public.

I used to think that I’d be more comfortable with God if He didn’t know all about my failures and faults. It’s embarrassing to think that God knows everything about me –even my secrets. But then I realize that He loves me. That changes everything –doesn’t it? 

I mean, if God said that He loves me, but didn’t know the worst about me, I’d always have to hope that He never finds out. I’d always have to worry that if He really knew me that maybe He wouldn’t love me.

But the fact that He loves me even knowing the worst about me means that I never have to worry about that. He already knows the worst about me. And He loves me.

1 John 3:1  See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!
 
#by-his-stripes.com #ByHisStripes

Luke 4:40, Matthew 14:14 "God Loves Individually & Personally"

It is possible to go all day without ever actually talking to another human being –I don’t mean by avoiding them or by hiding out indoors, I mean in a normal day in which we do all sorts of normal things, we could go all day without actually speaking to anyone.

We do banking at ATM machines or online. We send emails and texts instead of talking on the phone. Many stores have self-checkout lines where we don’t even need a cashier to wait on us. We do our shopping on the internet. We pay for our gas with a credit card right at the pump. . As our society gets more and more impersonal, I think it’s good to know that our relationship with God is personal –His love for us is personal. 

Jesus taught great multitudes of people. Often several thousand people at a time gathered to hear Jesus teach. Everywhere He went hundreds of people gathered around Him wanting to be healed from every imaginable sickness. Think about this –if He had wanted to, He could have healed every sickness in every crowd with a single word. He could have raised His arms and waved them over a crowd and healed every disease at once. But He didn’t do it that way. Instead He placed His hands on them one at a time and healed them one at a time.

I think it’s because He didn’t see crowds of people in the same way we see them. I think that Jesus saw a crowd of a thousand people as a thousand individuals, each unique and each important. And that’s the way He sees us –and that’s the way loves us. He loves us each individually.

Jesus didn’t die for the sins of humanity in a generic sense –He died for my sin and He died for your sin –personally. As our society gets more and more impersonal, it makes me happy to know that God loves me, personally.

#by-his-stripes.com #ByHisStripes

Deuteronomy 33:25 "Strength For Today, Today"

I was reading about a college professor who came into his class one day and hung a giant piece of white paper up on the board. Down in the bottom corner of the paper was a black dot.

He asked his students to tell him what they saw. Every one of the students said they saw a black dot. The teacher said, "That's interesting. Doesn't anyone see a huge sheet of white paper? After all, the dot is just one tiny spot on an very big piece of paper."

But, that's the way we are, isn't it? We tend to focus on the details and miss the bigger picture. Sometimes we focus on the dot of our present circumstances and miss the bigger picture of what God has already done for us, and what He will certainly continue to do. 

We sometimes focus on the wrong things -temporary things -and loose sight of the fact that "the Lord our God is a great and awesome God." And when we loose sight of the fact that God is a good God, God is a great God, God is an awesome God, we get overwhelmed.

In Dueteronomy 33:25, God says, "Your strength will equal your days." There is no strength for Monday on Sunday. Monday will get here soon enough. Use the strength God gives you for today, today. Trust that God will, indeed, give you strength for tomorrow, tomorrow. When we run ahead of our strength, we run out of strength. God will provide what we need when we need it, and He will provide exactly the right amount to meet the need. That's the way He works.

Let's try to see God's big sheet of white paper and not just the small black dot of current circumstances and frustrations.

#by-his-stripes.com  #ByHisStripes

Ephesians 2:10, Exodus 19:5 "Prized Possessions"

A few years back we took a family vacation up to the Washington D.C. area.   While we were there, we visited some of our national museums. In the national art galleries, they had paintings by artists like Rembrandt and Van Gogh and Da Vinci. They truly had some of the best art of all history. Any one can go there and see these wonderful paintings up close. Some of these paintings are priceless. At least, the originals are priceless. In the gift shop, of course, you can buy posters of some of the more famous paintings relatively cheap. You can even buy postcards for about 25 cents. But the cheap reproductions, obviously, are not the same as the real originals painted by the masters themselves.

We are the originals, handcrafted by God Himself. In Ephesians 2:10 we are told, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Understand what this is telling us. We are originals created by God. We are His workmanship. We are His masterpieces, created with a purpose. We are "created to do good works, which He has prepared in advance for us to do." Because God has a purpose for us, He has created in each of us uniquely the qualities and characteristics necessary to do the works He has prepared for us to do. Nothing that has gone into the shaping of our lives is by accident or random chance.

In Exodus 19:5, God tells the nation of Israel (and this promise holds true for us as well), "If you obey me and keep my covenant, then you will be my treasured possession." 

Some of us have been hurt or rejected or ignored or abused or criticized. We have been told things that were hurtful. And those negative messages play in our minds. They affect the way we feel about ourselves. But remember that it is not our friends that determine our worth. It is not our employers or critics or our spouses or our moms or dads or even our culture that determines our value. It is our Designer who determines our value. And God has declared that we are His workmanship. And God has declared that we are His treasured possessions.

When we think of all the wonderful, beautiful things God has created, we are amazed. The intricate, detailed design of the universe astounds me. The stars, the mountains, the rolling hills, the oceans, the deserts, the incredible diversity of animal and plant life. I marvel that God conceived everything from the Swiss Alps to Niagara Falls, to the Grand Canyon, to the South Sea Islands, to the African deserts. It's incredible. There are so many wonderful things that God created. But out of all He has created we are his prized possession.

All of humankind is created by God in His image and has intrinsic value. But we who have believed and trusted God through Jesus are the masterwork of God. We fully realize our value only when we are brought into right relationship with God through Jesus. We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. It is In Christ Jesus that we discover our true worth. We can't fully understand how much we are worth until we accept the love of the One who loves us most.

#by-his-stripes.com #ByHisStripes

Deuteronomy 7:17 "Little By Little"

How often we tend to get ahead of God. It’s in our nature. We worry about things that aren’t even realities yet –and maybe never will be. We’re afraid of things that we don’t even have any control over. We get anxious about scenarios that exist only in our imaginations. You know what I mean –we worry that even though we got the bills paid this month, we might not be able to pay them next month. We worry that even though we feel fairly healthy today, we might have someday have cancer. We worry that the car might break down in the middle of the night on some dark deserted stretch of road. It’s our nature to be fearful and anxious. And then when we add to all of our unfounded worries and anxieties, the fears and anxieties that seem justified –we worry about our children and our relationships and our jobs; and then when we add to all those worries our regrets and our hurts and our failings, life can seem a little overwhelming.

I want to look for a few minutes at God’s plan for dealing with all that overwhelming stuff. He doesn’t intend for us to carry all that baggage, but He knows how hard it is for us to set that baggage down, so He has a plan for us. His plan is revealed in the Old Testament in the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt.

After the Israelites had left Egypt, God revealed His plan for the Hebrews to Moses, and Moses, in turn told the people. In Deuteronomy chapters 6 and 7, we find Moses telling the people how God has chosen Israel for a special purpose. He is telling them that if they obey God and keep His commandments, God will bless them and God will go before them as they go into the land of Canaan and take it for their own. The problem was that Israel was a puny little country. Well, they didn't actually even have a country; they only had a group of people. And the land that God had promised them was already inhabited. Much of it was inhabited by fierce warriors. Not only were these people fierce and barbaric, but they lived in walled cities that were nearly impenetrable.

Looking ahead, the Israelites were a little overwhelmed. But God told them to go into the land and engage these fierce warriors in battle and drive them out of the land. As you can imagine, the Israelites were a little worried about how this was going to be accomplished –they weren’t all that anxious to engage stronger enemies in walled cities.

But God had a plan for them –a plan for victory.  In Deuteronomy 7, beginning with verse 17, we read, "You may say to yourselves, 'These nations are stronger than us, how can we drive them out?' But stop worrying! Do not be afraid of them. Remember well what the Lord did to the Egyptians…. And He will again work miracles for you when you face these enemies…. So don't be frightened when you meet them in battle. The Lord your God is a great and awesome God. As you attack these nations, the Lord will force them out little by little." 

I want you to read that last sentence again because I think here we find God's basic formula for dealing with stress and worries and addictions and persistent, nagging sin, and all of the things that seem to assault us on our spiritual journey. Here we find God's plan for dealing with those things that seem overwhelming. The Lord will force them out little by little. That was God’s plan for the Israelites when they were overwhelmed, and I think it is God’s basic plan for us as well.

God's plan for dealing with the overwhelming is to deal with it little by little -with Him leading and us following.

#by-his-stripes.com #ByHisStripes

John 10:10, Luke 4:18-19 "Heart Matters"

The heart is central to everything. That’s because of why were created. We were created to love. I think that somewhere down inside we all understand this –love is the whole point. Without love, life is meaningless. We know that if we can truly love, and be loved, and not lose love –we know we would be happy. But you see, this kind of love –love that is true and pure is a heart thing. Loving requires a heart that is fully alive and free. And this is where we have problems.

We forget the importance of the heart. We forget that Jesus told us the greatest commandment is to love God with all of or hearts. We forget that we are to hide the Word of God in our hearts. We forget that God’s commandments and promises are to be written on our hearts. We forget that although man looks on outward appearances, God looks at our hearts. We forget that it is out of our hearts that authentic praise and worship flows. We forget that our hearts are the very wellspring of life. We forget how central the heart is, but, again, our enemy hasn’t forgotten.

Our enemy knows how important our hearts are –and that’s why he is so intent on destroying them –that’s why he is intent on breaking our hearts –on twisting our hearts –on deadening our hearts. If he can disable and deaden our hearts, he has effectively foiled God’s plan for us –God’s plan that our hearts be fully alive and free to love God with all of our hearts –to worship God with all of our hearts. If the enemy can break our hearts, he has broken us.

Over a period of time, we have all suffered blows. We’ve all had hardship and trials. And to some degree, we have all lost heart. And as a result, instead of the life that Jesus came to give us, we settle for efficiency, busyness and productivity. To some degree we have all suffered some heart damage, and we tend now to drift through life, going through the motions, but not truly understanding how very much God loves us, and incapable –because of our damaged hearts, to truly love God.
The thief, satan, our enemy, has done the job of stealing, killing and destroying when it comes to matters of the heart, hasn’t he. Boy, do we need some help.

That’s why Jesus packaged the two thoughts together in John 10:10. “The thief has come only to rob, kill, and destroy, but I have come so that you can have life, and have it abundantly.”
This is what the relationship with Jesus is all about –getting our hearts back. The thief robs and kills and destroys –but Jesus gives life. The enemy twists our hearts and deadens our hearts and breaks our hearts –but listen to this prophecy from Isaiah chapter 61 that Jesus said was about him:

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for prisoners,"
(Luke 4:18-19)


The enemy robs and kills and destroys, but Jesus gives life, binds up the broken hearted, and proclaims freedom and release to those in bondage. Jesus restores our hearts.

#by-his-stripes.com #ByHisStripes