Isaiah 55:6-9 – “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

THEME OF THE DAY: DON’T DELAY IN RETURNING. He was sad, frustrated, grieving and ready to give up. I could tell by his words, his facial expression, and the general cloud of sorrow hanging over him. He said, “It’s useless. I keep falling into the same sins over and over. I am stupid and it would be a slap in God’s face for me to ask for forgiveness still yet another time.” It didn’t take long for me to respond. I said, “Actually, it would be a slap in His face if you didn’t seek Him for forgiveness. Jesus didn’t come for those who think they have it all together and basically say, ‘Lord, thanks for saving me from the penalty of my sin. I got it from here.’”

My friend has a couple of spiritual problems to address. First, the lack of understanding what happened at salvation. And he is not alone. A lot of Christians fail to apply the key doctrine of our faith when they sin – justification by faith. By doing so, they live without the joy of the Lord and struggle with forgiveness and assurance of salvation. That is why a thorough Biblical theology is the most important and primary teaching and preaching work in our churches. Doctrinally weak Christians, not grounded in the objective truth of God and His salvation, will be floundering Christians. When it comes to the quality of our Christian life, having assurance, and being effective for the Lord, we must understand and live the doctrine of justification by faith constantly. So what is justification by faith? It is not an experience, emotion or feeling of forgiveness. It is God declaring us blameless before Him because of His Son’s law-obeying life and wrath-removing sacrifice applied to us through faith. It is the objective truth of God proclaiming, ‘You are right with me because of the work of My Son on your behalf.’ And this declaration by God never changes. It is a once and for all occurrence, never repeated. It is here we must anchor our Christian life if we want sustained joy when we sin. We must rest in God’s declarative promise, not our fleeting feelings, that He will always see and treat us as an adopted son or daughter in His forever family.

Another problem my friend is struggling with is seeing God as He is in the Bible. We simply cannot make God like us. He is not even close. Read the last few sentences in today’s scripture. This is so important when we do sin against Him. There are times in our human relationships when we are deeply hurt by another person and we might be reluctant to forgive him or her. Don’t put this attitude on the Lord. When my friend said, “It would be a slap in God’s face for me to ask forgiveness still yet another time”, that is pride, not humility. It is also an attack on God’s character. It is painting a picture of a God who is reluctant to forgive, slow to restore a person to Himself, and more a stern taskmaster than a loving Heavenly Father. As we need to remember justification by faith for our joy, we also need to keep our minds on God’s loving character. He is eager to show mercy; delights in pardoning His confessing and repenting children; and doesn’t hold those confessed and forsaken sins against us. And here is another great truth about God when we sin. He doesn’t passively wait for us to return to Him for forgiveness and restoration. He aggressively and lovingly comes to us with a plea, even invitation, to return to us – “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins are scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). This truth has application beyond restoration. What my friend needs is not to focus on his sinning, but to focus on God’s restoring love. The more we see that in our sinning, the more we will see ourselves sinning less. And that is the key to living a life pleasing to the Lord and satisfying our souls.

PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for being an always forgiving and always restoring God.”

QUOTE: “Don’t delay coming to the Father in confession and repentance. He sent His Son for those purposes”