God is bigger than our biggest failures. Because, “where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through JESUS CHRIST our Lord.” (Romans 5:20–21) What awesome news!
In a surrendered life to Christ, we become more… MUCH more, much bigger and higher than who we once were. We soar above our painful past as we ride on the wings of His hope. This is the HOPE for ALL of an abundant life relationship with the living Jesus, today!
Jesus says with such confidence and Kingdom audacity that wicked sinners – those the world looks down upon – who recognize their need and who come to Him will enter the Kingdom of God before those who think they are not in need of God.
The Weak find Strength In Jesus
Jesus is looking for those who’ve run out of options; those at the end of their rope; all who are weary and without hope and strength in any other means of help.
Are we at this place today? We could’ve had a salvation experience years ago, but are we walking in a palpable state of God’s freeing grace, forgiveness, and power today?
We may be able to expound the Greek, pray eloquently, and talk the talk. But is peace and total joy found as a wellspring in our heart, or is it conspicuously absent?
If so, turn to Him with all your power, even if your power looks and feels like much weakness. Surrender right now in childlike terms. Confess all that is weighing upon your heart, even if you’re a broken record. But make sure you speak without holding anything back; expose your heaviness to God. He can take it.
Is sin mounding and pride in the way of jettisoning it overboard? Maybe it’s pain, weariness, and a heavy load that’s become too great to carry. Remember that Jesus came to take AWAY our sins and our burdens. Not just to forgive. Not to merely cover up sin. Not to paste a fake smile on a few church-goers.
Freedom!
The good news is that IN CHRIST, we have One who willingly takes our burdens and sets us FREE.
This is His desire, to set YOU… FREE!
Free from what?
Free from the pain and guilt of bad decisions. God is bigger than our painful mistakes no matter how big, how embarrassing, how wicked, or how utterly hurtful.
Free from painful broken relationships. He can heal families; fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and reconcile the worst of enemies. All it takes is faith on our part. Faith to believe that if we repent of and confess our sins, that He is faithful to forgive us our sins and CLEANSE US of all of our filthy unrighteousness. What does this look like? It looks like a Heavenly Father who loves you enough to clean the stinkiest of diapers and still choose to snuggle with His child afterward and nurture us on toward maturity.
Free from hypocrisy. God is bigger than the homeschooled Christian who is secretly riddled with sin. Looking clean, religious, orderly on the outside, but Oh how she can no longer stand the stench and deception of her life. She wants the real thing. The Authentic Christ that the women in Jesus’ time met. The Jesus who didn’t require an external dress code, but offered a truly modest robe of righteousness that only He gives. She desires the comfy clothes of Salvation, not the binding apparel of “looking the part.” God is big enough to supply this wardrobe to all who ask Him.
Free from regret. Maybe it’s regret having wasted much our life on ourselves rather than serving God and His beautiful Kingdom. Jesus says to those of a broken and contrite heart: “your sins are forgiven. I do not condemn you. Go, and sin no more.”
Free from festering wounds and broken hearts. The weight of a marriage faltering, teetering, or looking impossible to repair. And the additional despair of how it’s affecting your children. How will this end, you wonder. But God is able to do the impossible He DELIGHTS in the impossible. He just wants us to believe. All things are possible to those have faith. He will richly supply all our needs.
Ultimately, He wants to free us from our old fleshly, self center, easily-wounded SELF.
Believe and Press-in
Whatever is weighing us down from running the race, we are commanded to put it down, and be freed to run the race, gracefully. Because without faith it is simply not possible to please God. Therefore believe that He IS, and that He will reward you if you extravagantly seek Him.
Jeremiah 40:3, 6, 8-9, 11 from Septuagint (Jer 33 in most modern bibles)
‘Cry out to Me, and I will answer you. I will proclaim to you great and mighty things which you do not know.’
‘Behold, I bring her health and healing for her wounds, and I will show them how to obey. Yes, I will heal this city and bring about peace and faithfulness. I will cleanse them from all their wrongdoings by which they sinned against Me. I will not remember their sins by which they sinned against Me and withdrew from Me. This shall be for the gladness, praise, and majesty of all the people of the earth, who shall hear all the good things I will do. They shall fear and be provoked concerning all the good things and the peace I shall bring upon them.’
‘the voice of gladness and joyfulness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, the voice of those saying, “Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good, for His mercy endures forever.” They will bring gifts into the house of the Lord, for I shall bring back all the captives of that land as it was before,’ says the Lord.
Whatever the pain that has allowed us to be held captive, today is the day of true freeing salvation. He bore MUCH pain in order that we might be pain-FREE. Christ is the only true reliever that actually works ALL the time.
One of Jesus’ most powerful moments in which He fulfilled prophecy, happened in a little gathering, reading out of Isaiah. But the implications were HUGE:
Luke 4:17–21 (NKJV)
And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
And believe that God’s salvation through Christ is a saving work that not only remits sin and delivers one from Hell, but one that lifts the burden, washes, cleanses, renews, and brings us into the brightness of His glory, forever and ever. Amen!
Romans 8:1–2 (NKJV)
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
If you are not sure that “the law of the Spirit of LIFE in Christ Jesus has made [you] FREE from the law of sin and death”, than I invite you to have an assurance of “Yes”, and “Amen” today! You can have this assurance, this peace, this freedom, this relationship with the living God by simply reaching out to Him.
He is near to you. He wants you to call out to Him, to seek Him, and to find Him. If you give your life over wholly to Christ, God will become a reality to you through Faith. Ask God to forgive you, and he will. Purpose to stop living for yourself, and to start living for Him. And He has promised He will begin to reveal Himself to you. Find out what His will is for you by reading the Word of God. Ask Him with an honest heart, and He has promised He will show you.
Ask to be saved through Christ, and He has promised He will do it.