My Sins or God’s Greatness?

What do you think about the most? The mistakes you have made and sins you have committed? About how you think you are bad and worthless and unlovable? Or do you think about God’s greatness? About His great love toward you, Jesus’ death on the cross to free you from sin and condemnation, the abundant life God has for you, and the love, peace, and joy that are prepared for you?

I spent just about all my life thinking about my sins and everything I had done wrong. It was not uncommon for me in my early forties to think about things I got in trouble for when I was four or five years old! I sat around and nursed all the memories of my mistakes and sins and continued to condemn myself for all of them. As a result, I could not let God penetrate my heart or my mind with His love. I wanted Him to and I know God wanted to but I built all these strongholds based on lies in my mind that made me believe I was not loveable. This self-created belief kept me from believing the truth that God loved me.

I praise God for delivering me from my self-hatred and self-condemnation. I no longer sit around meditating on my faults, failures, shortcomings, and sins. I actively and consciously meditate on God’s greatness. Whenever my thoughts remind me of the past, I resist them and choose to think about what God says in His Word. God reveals to me in His Word that I am a new creature in Christ. He reveals to me that He has poured His love on me. He reveals to me that I have been adopted into His family and He loves me dearly. He reveals to me there is no condemnation for me because I have been set free from sin and condemnation. He reveals to me that because I have confessed my sins He forgives me. He tells me that my forgiven sins have been dropped into the sea of forgetfulness and He does not remember them. And whenever Satan or my own old thought habits try to tell me that I am no good and unlovable and not worthy of God’s love I choose to not believe them anymore. Instead I replace those old, defeating thoughts with life-giving thoughts from the Word and believe God’s truth about me.

Walk by Faith and Not by Sight

I’ve been in some emotional turmoil for a while experiencing doubt and fear despite trusting God and letting Him be the director of my life. I am obeying whatever He tells me to do, but I have been having a difficult time when looking to the future. To be honest, I am at a level of obedience for the first time in my life where every commitment and responsibility I have has been given to me by God. I am not executing any plan of my own and I am out of my comfort zone in every way. The only thing that seems constant in my life right now is feeding my fish every night!

God is running the show and I trust Him. But He isn’t sharing the entire plan with me. All I know is the activity of the moment. I do not know what all of my obedience will ultimately produce and, as a result, I have fallen into a questioning attitude.

Have you ever had a questioning attitude? A questioning attitude goes something like this:

Why am I doing this? I just don’t see what good it’s doing. What am I going do with this anyway? I just don’t see how I’m going to get through this. How will all this workout?

I got lost in this questioning attitude and began to experience discouragement and confusion. Whenever I experience these emotions, I know that I have to stop trying to figure things out and surrender it all back to God. As I laid it all at God’s feet this last weekend I realized that it’s okay that I do not see the plan. It is okay not to see because I choose to walk by faith not by sight. If I could see what was ahead…if I could see what this was going to do for me…if I could see how this will benefit me then I would not be walking by faith.

I felt God telling me that I could walk by faith or by the sight and the choice is all mine. Walking by sight would require me to put my plan in place and work with my limited ability and knowledge and understanding. Walking by faith requires me to obey the God Who knows everything and trust Him to know what is right for me even though I cannot see the end goal. The reason I can say “I don’t see…” is because I walk by faith and faith goes after something that cannot be seen.

When we walk by faith we cannot see what is ahead. More often than not, all we can see is the last thing God told us to do. As long as we are doing the last thing God told us to do we are being obedient and God always honors obedience. In God’s time, when He is ready and we are ready, He will reveal the next step of His plan for us. Until God reveals the next step, we must remember that we walk by faith and not by sight.