NOT GUILTY!
the Saving GRACE of God’s Redeeming LOVE
April 28th, 2023
KNOCK, KNOCK
Revelation 3:20, ‘”Behold, I’m standing at the door, knocking. If your heart is open to hear My voice, and you open the door within, I will come into you and feast with you, and you will feast with Me.”’ (TPT)
In all the fears l foster of unworthiness, I find myself repeatedly at the foot of the Cross, kneeling at the feet of Jesus. The path is well-worn now, the path that leads back to Jesus, every time my doubts and my shame chase after me. I learn, as hard-headed and -hearted as I am sometimes, that many in the Bible are not unlike me. That since the beginning of time, when the God of the Universe began to spin His story, writing me into it, dreaming me out of dirt, breathing His breath into my lungs, imagining I might someday look like Him, He was planning for real and for keeps. He had bigger things in store and purposed for me than I could ever have dreamt or conceived of or imagined.
Down through the ages, His heart beats for you and me, for mankind, for humanity. I know the Bible says, ‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35), and we know that He was a ‘man of sorrows, acquainted with grief’ (Isaiah 53:5). I wonder—did Holy God cry? Did tears run down His face? Did He wipe hope that leaked from His eyes when He looked at me and saw I wasn’t who He created me to be? I know there have been times in the lives of my own children when what they were going through came out in a gasp and a cry from my lips; when I sat down and sobbed into clenched fists at the choices they were making; when I wept from what I could not rescue them. I saw my own dad cry because of my choices, weeping at what my decisions cost. I wonder how many times my Father has cried on my behalf, regretted me. Does He ever want to trade me like a faulty player being paid more than they are worth on a sports team? Did He ever doubt what He was doing—making mankind in His image—as He walked in the garden toward the place where Adam and Eve hid from Him? Does He ever want to yell, “You don’t at all resemble me!”
No, instead, a Holy God sent His beloved Son to pay the penalty of my sin and wrongdoing. When I chose to do it my way instead of His way, His Son went to the Cross, so all my insolence and disobedience could be nailed there, hung there, left there. My name was on His lips, and He wrote my forgiveness in His blood, and He deemed me ‘Not Guilty’ and eternally worth rescuing. I am forever grateful and forever changed because of what He has done for me.
Ephesians 3:20, ‘Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energizes you.’ (TPT)
God’s Loving Kindness Leads Me to Repentance
