Psalm 103:10-12 ESV
Romans 8:31-39 ESV
Thoughts on Scripture for Life
While we’ve done some work on forgiveness, we haven’t really focused much on forgiving and loving yourself.
Loving YOU and forgiving YOU is an essential part of God’s plan for you.
Many of us seem to be better at forgiving others than we are at forgiving ourselves.
In Psalm 103:10-12 we are told, “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
Those verses make us realize what an extraordinary God we love and serve.
This remarkable creator thinks of us night and day.
God is so in love with you that one of His greatest concerns is that He has no intention, really no thought at all about making sure we understand and accept responsibility for our sins.
Allow me to repeat that…God has no intention of dealing with you according to YOUR sins.
As a matter of fact, God sent His own son (who He had never been separated from) to die for your sins in your place.
When God sent His son who was “one” with Him to die so you would not have to pay for your sin.
In your place, God sent Himself.
In order to be forgiven, you only need to ask God to forgive you. It will be done.
That’s because as high as the heavens are above the earth, that’s how much God loves you.
I remember when I was younger I would hear people say how much God loves me is personal. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
I didn’t fully understand it until I was older and had kids of my own. I’m not sure why, but for me I think it had a lot to do with being a Mom. Once I had kids of my own I understood what it would be like if they were in trouble…like in physical danger. Or I knew what they felt like when they were struggling to let go of a bad choice they made.
I knew I would do anything to protect my kids. I knew if I needed to I would die trying to protect them from physical danger. I also knew I didn’t want them to continually feel bad when they made a mistake.
That’s what Jesus did for us.
Jesus died to protect us from living in eternity without God (Him). Jesus died so we can be with God forever. Jesus died so we can be forgiven.
In addition to what Jesus did so we could have access to heaven, God casts your sins as far as the east is from the west.
In an eternal world, the east and the west never meet. Once again it’s difficult for finite beings to understand how it could be that the east never meets the west, because we think of our world (the round earth) as setting the standard. Heaven isn’t round and it isn’t flat. It’s eternal. The east and the west never meet.
I’m sure a scientist would explain it differently (and better), but that’s how I see it. I came to a point in my spiritual walk with God where I understood what it means that God casts your sin to a place (heaven) where our sin will never be exposed.
We can tell God anything…any secret, and it will never surface again.
Our ‘thing’, our sin will never be made public by God.
That’s because God is our ultimate Papa Protector. Once again, it’s personal.
Whatever we confess to God will never be revealed in the open.
In light of that, if God can be for us why are we against us? Another way of saying that is if God loves us, why don’t we love ourselves as much as God loves us?
Romans 8:31-39 tells us about God's Everlasting Love in this way, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If God, who knows everything about us loves us still, why would we NOT love ourselves. Why do we beat ourselves up and refuse to accept that because of Jesus we are more than conquerors?
We ARE more than conquerors. We ARE fully forgiven and nothing can ever ever separate us from God’s love.
We may not understand that kind of love (I’m not sure I do), but once we accept it as a fact, we can begin to love ourselves as God loves us.
GOD loves you. God LOVES you. God loves YOU!
Today’s Spiritual Practice is: Love Yourself
If you are carrying around baggage, let it go and love yourself.
In God, Deborah
Comments