we’re all confused about this...

i don’t know if you heard about the guy who was driving up to big bear to his cabin.  just before he got to his cabin he hit an oil slick and his car slid off into a ravine.  the car was devastated.  he was alive but scratched up.  he got up and climbed out of the ravine.  just then a storm came over and he got totally drenched.  he’s climbing up out of the ravine, he’s drenched, shivering.  he sees his cabin just in time to see a lightning bolt hit it and burst into flames.  he looks up to heaven and says, what all of us would say, “why me, GOD?  why me?”  he hears a voice from heaven come back saying, “because some people just tic me off!”

that is typical of what we think about GOD.  that somehow GOD is mad at me, that somehow GOD is getting even at me.  HE is getting back at me.  we think every little thing that happens in our lives “i must have done something wrong.  that’s why GOD’s doing this.”  you go into taco bell and order a taco.  you get it and it doesn’t have any meat in it.  you think, “what did i do?  GOD’s getting back at me.  what did i do?”  the vegetarian sitting across who got your taco is thinking, “what did i do?”  we’re all confused about this.

would GOD treat HIS children that way?  isaiah 43.25 (tev), I am the GOD who forgives your sins.  I do this because of who I am.  I will not hold your sins against you.  GOD doesn’t carry grudges.  you might.  i might.  but GOD does not hold grudges.  romans 8.1 (niv) says, there is no condemnation for those who are in CHRIST JESUS.  GOD is not sitting up in heaven rehearsing your sins, looking at them in HIS own personal vcr again and again and again.  HE erased your sins.  HE doesn’t rehearse them.  HE releases them. 

a very good thing to remember at the beginning of this new week.

just a thought from the front porch…