How Deep is God’s Grace Part 1

What is the first thing you think of when you sin against God? I tend to think… “boy! He must be really mad at me!” Or sometimes, in my worst moments…”is God going to reject me now?” Maybe you’ve had these or other thoughts, maybe even worse ones. Most of the time I believe these kinds of thoughts are from the evil one; although, it must be noted that if we deliberately, “in your face, God”, sin against Him, He may be warning us to repent or face His divine discipline. Discipline, mind you, not rejection.  Because if you are God’s child, Hebrews 12:6 says “For the Lord disciplines those He loves, and chastens everyone He accepts as a son.”  I am not referring to deliberate times of rebellion in this article; I am talking about the times when we don’t willfully sin, but rather get caught by surprise, or, leave an unguarded place that lets the enemy take advantage of us. What about those times? What is God’s attitude towards us then?

Most important is the fact that, for the true believer, ALL your sins were washed away when you received Christ as your Savior. Listen to Colossians 1:13 “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Did God know you would sin after you believed on His Son? He sure did! He didn’t save you because He thought that if He did you would never sin again. He saved you because He loves you!

When we sin we grieve the Holy Spirit, in other words, He hurts. If we ignore His promptings to make the right decision in the moment of temptation, He is quenched, but He never leaves us and He is always calling us to repent and get back in fellowship with the Father. Why? The reason is simple, because the Father loves us and misses us when we are “gone” away into sin. Next week, more on grace.

Mike Whitney