NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

February 11

Scripture focus: Because of this decision we don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them. We're speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he's already a friend with you. 2 Corinthians 5:16-20 MSG

“I would love to think that I could be forgiven for my sins. But you don’t understand – my sins are really really bad. A just God would never forgive me – I can’t forgive myself and don’t think I deserve forgiveness.”

My friend lives far, far away from our little community, but she is not alone. Many of us struggle with coming to understand how God can forgive us for our very great and dark offenses.

As I sent scripture verses winging through cyber-space about God’s mercy and grace, I eventually received this reply: “I was snorkeling the other day, and had what I think you would call a “God moment. It occurred to me that my resistance to accepting God’s forgiveness was very arrogant. As I was looking at the beauty of God’s creation, it was as if God spoke to me (not in an audible voice, I’m not crazy) and said, ‘Do you really think anything you could do, right or wrong, is more powerful than me?’ I get it, at least for the moment. God’s forgiveness is more about who he is than what I did!”

This may sound weird, but in some ways this young woman’s heart cry of feeling unforgiven and unforgivable turned out to be an excuse for inaction. As long as she could feel unforgiven, she felt no responsibility to do the next right thing.
She’s using her fresh start to make appropriate amends and wrestle with what it means to be a Christ representative. I’m so appreciative of her willingness to listen to God. I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you the rest of the story. She continues to struggle with feeling unforgiven. But she is practicing living a forgiven life. No longer is she allowing how she feels to be her internal compass. She has stepped up to the plate and made a conscious decision to trust God.
May we follow her lead!


Click on the word comments below and join our conversation!

© Copyright 2010 NorthStar Community

---