2005-05-03 - We Are Not Faithful People

Psalm 31:22, ...The Lord preserves the faithful..."

Let us be honest here; we are not faithful. Many of us wish we were, and even seek to be faithful, but if we are honest, we can admit we are not faithful. We all have a very deep problem, and that problem is sin. We can confess, and yet the sin dogs us. Faithfulness is one of those strange things. We all can recognize it when we see it, but lack of faithfulness can often mask it self. Faithfulness is easy to spot, but when we are not faithful, we all have ways of playing cover-up games. Sin is the disease we all struggle with. It is maybe the one thing that every one of us have in common. We all have different backgrounds, propensities and such, but sin is the universal thing that everyone, Christian or non-Christian, have in common.

If you asked me what my favorite verse was, it would depend on the day. And each day, I would not be lying, but I might give you a different verse seven days in a row, if posed with the same question. But certainly one that hits the top of my list is 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." This is because we are not faithful people. But God is faithful, and He has promised to forgive us when we come to Him in repentance and seeking His mercy. This promise in 1 John 1:9 is one we can hang our hat on, and one that we all need to know, experience, and live. Whereas we are unfaithful, even when we do our best to be faithful, God is faithful, and He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Having our sins forgiven is no small matter, and I am sure many of you know this. You know your hearts, Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" But we see here something that is greater than anything we could ever imagine. We are forgiven, in 1 John 1:9; God is faithful, and He not only forgives our sins that we committed before we came to Christ, but our sins, even after coming to Christ, when we knew better, are also forgiven. All we need to do is turn to Christ in faith and repentance, and His promise is that He will forgive. Our heart might lead us to think that the last sin, or this or that transgression is just too BIG and unforgivable, but that is not what God's Holy Word tells us. We are told that if we come to Him in faith and repentance, he will forgive!

So I could end here with a cute story, and I think I will. But before I do that, I want you, Christian or non-Christian, to rest in Christ. He is faithful. He will forgive. We simply need to come to Him in faith in His atonement for sin. It is one of those things we can't understand this side of the grave, but faith is just that, faith. We need faith to believe this, and that is a gift of God, of the Holy Spirit - but if you seek it, you shall have it. It really is amazing.

I am going to tell you the story of a soldier. This is, again, an old story, but this soldier was constantly in trouble. He was brought up on serious charges, and the judge simply said "forgiven." He was so shocked by this, that it changed his life. He said he had never experienced forgiveness before, and from that time on, he was never known to be guilty of a crime. Mercy reigned, and mercy should reign with us also. May we seek to be like this soldier who, when forgiven, knew what a mercy that was, and amended his life.

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

tim@cfdevotionals.org
http://www.cfdevotionals.org
http://www.papercutpress.com