pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: unending


by 1 Comment

Restoring a Sinner

Reading: Psalm 85

The psalmist expresses a cycle that is common to us all.  The people of Israel sinned and found God’s forgiveness.  Time passed and they sinned again.  The writer expresses the need for God to forgive the people once again.  The psalmist calls for God’s unfailing love to once again yield mercy and grace.  The writer reminds themselves and God that God promises peace to His people.  The the writer again requests salvation from God.

It is a cycle we often repeat as well.  Earlier in one’s Christian walk, the cycle is repeated more often but throughout life we cycle through the sin-repentance-forgiveness pattern over and over.  Being human, frail and weak as we are, we will fall into sin.  Yet God, being unfailing love and unending grace, responds over and over again with forgiveness and an invitation back into right relationship with Him.

As we look back over our journey of faith we can identify times when we came to realize that we had been sinning.  It was not obvious to us before we reached a certain maturity level in our faith.  As we continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ we come to junctures where we realize that what we were doing was really gossip or being jealous or lust or …  What was before simply part of who we are is one day seen as sin.  So we repent and think ‘not again’ as we are now aware that a certain behavior was sinful.  But like most sins, this one will return again.  Satan knows our weak spots and will continue to hammer away at them for a while.

As we mature in our faith and our relationship with Christ grows stronger, the time between recurrences of a sin will lengthen out.  And being fully human, we know that we may fall back into that sin once in a while.  But as we do mature, we recognize it sooner and come to a place where we stop at the temptation to gossip or whatever.  And then we begin to wrestle with other sins in our lives!

Into our constant battle with sin, into our human weakness, steps God’s love and grace.  God’s love and grace are far greater than our sin will ever be.  It is so great that nothing in all of creation is able to separate us from the love of God.  May we ever be thankful for God’s unfailing love and unending grace that always restores a sinner like me back to the true and loving relationship that is life itself.


by 1 Comment

Unending Love, Amazing Grace 

Reading: Amos 7: 10-17

Can you remember getting in trouble when you were little?  When we were first learning to follow the rules often there were times when we simply felt that the rule did not apply to us or that the rule was wrong.  The ‘rules’ and following them were outside of our own little world.  Sad thing is that this is still occasionally the case for us in adulthood.  The pull of what we want outweighs what we see as the immediate consequences and we stray outside the lines.

King Jeroboam had strayed outside the lines.  The king and the nation of Israel have engaged in sinful living.  They have oppressed the poor, worshiped false gods, and no longer follow God’s laws.  Earlier in the book of Amos, God had issued a call to repentance through the prophet.  The king and people ignored it.  Even after God has threatened to destroy the kingdom and to send the people into exile, Israel continues to live in sin.  Because of their great self-centeredness, they angrily refuse to be accountable to God and they tell Amos to go away.

Can you recall a time when you were enjoying life just a bit too much?  Can you remember a time when you justified a poor choice or behavior because you were enjoying the results or the outcome?  At times and in seasons of our faith it can be all too easy to get off track and to find ourselves where we should not be.  Despite nudges to repent from the Holy Spirit and calls from friends and family, we struggle to break free and step back inside of God’s love and guidance.

But God continues to work on our hearts and our family and friends pray and keep trying to hold us accountable.  We come to see our sin and repent.  God, in His unlimited love and grace, pours out forgiveness and we are restored to a right relationship with Him.  Our sin is wiped away in the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ.  We are humbled by God’s amazing grace and unending love.  We find ourselves transformed and have grown in our faith.  As a new creation in Christ we are ready to again live as a child of God.  We look back and wonder how we ever got ‘there’.  We promise to never go there again, but Satan does not give up.  Sin and temptation never go away.  Yet we also know that God is greater than he who is living in this world.  His amazing grace and unending love will always triumph.  For this we shout, thanks be to God!!