Joel 2:12-14 “But there’s also this, it’s not too late—God’s personal Message!—“Come back to me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!” Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God, your God. And here’s why: God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe. Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it now, maybe he’ll turn around and show pity. Maybe, when all’s said and done, there’ll be blessings full and robust for your God!” Today’s episode talks about how God is calling us back to Him. He is calling us to repentance. It is never too late to turn back to God. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
It’s Not Too Late
Joel 2:12-14 “But there’s also this, it’s not too late—God’s personal Message!—“Come back to me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!” Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God, your God. And here’s why: God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe. Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it now, maybe he’ll turn around and show pity. Maybe, when all’s said and done, there’ll be blessings full and robust for your God!”
Today I decided to use the message translations. Sometimes I just feel it is helpful to hear what God is saying in language that is easier to understand. Sometimes when I don’t understand a verse I will read it in the message translation and afterwards I have a much better idea of what it is saying. If you are like me, you have no idea what is going on in Joel 2, so this verse may not mean as much to you. Let me briefly explain what is going on before this verse. Verses 1-11 are talking about how God’s judgement is on its way. It is describing a black out day, a doomsday, no silver lining, etc. Those first 11 verse are nothing but doom and gloom and then you come to these verses. But wait, it’s not too late. I bet they were so relieved to hear those words. Can’t you just picture it? Someone is telling you there is something terrible on the very near horizon. Something awful you don’t want to face. Then they say there may be a way out. How excited would you be? I know some of you are praying for that right now. I know some of you have gotten awful news, or are awaiting news that could be awful and you are praying for a “but wait, it’s not too late.” I hope those words come for you. I hope you hear them just as God’s people did in this passage.
God told them, even now, even though I have already dispatched my armies, even though I have already decided what I want to do, even now, it is not too late. God is so kind and merciful. I love this version because it puts the message in plain english that we can all understand. I love that it says God, “Takes a deep breath, and puts up with a lot.” Truer words have never been spoken. Can you imagine how much God puts up with from us? There is a line in a song I love. The song is called “Love me Like I Am” by King and Country. The lines I love are: “It’s amazing that You can. Love me like I am. And even when I can’t You still love me as I am. Oh, I don't know how You do it And I know I put You through it.” This line always makes me smile because I think of all the ways I put God through it.
I think about all the times I say I will do something and I don’t. I think of all times I am unkind or say things I know He wouldn’t like. I think about all the times I know I shouldn’t do something and yet I do it anyway. I think of all the times I felt He asked me to do something and I said no, or I ignored the request, as if I didn’t hear Him. How about you? Can you think of some times you “put God through it?” Can you think of times when He probably had to teak a deep breath and lets be honest, probably rolled His eyes. And yet, He keeps forgiving us, He keeps offering us a second, a third, a one hundredth chance. God is so amazing. I am honestly in awe and have no idea how He does it.
In this verse after it says that it is not too late, it gives us instructions. “Come back to me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!” Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God, your God.” Wow, that is powerful. I like how he is willing to take us back and yet He is not letting us walk all over Him. He is not taking us back from a point of weakness. Begging us to come as if He needs us to come back to Him. He tells us we can come back and yet He tells us to really mean it this time. Don’t just fake it. Don’t just come back to me intending to do the same thing you always do. Really mean it this time. Really plan on changing this time. He is also asking us to do something. He is asking us to come back fasting and weeping with actual sorrow for our sins. There is a line in the act of contrition that is my favorite and also it makes me sad to even think about. The Act of Contrition is the prayer Catholics say at the end of Confession. There are many versions, here is one of them:
My God,
I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.
In choosing to do wrong
and failing to do good,
I have sinned against you
whom I should love above all things.
I firmly intend, with your help,
to do penance,
to sin no more,
and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.
Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us.
In his name, my God, have mercy.
The line that I love and that makes me sad to think about is the one that says, “In choosing do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you, whom I should love above all things.” I love it because every time I say it I am reminded that it was my choice to sin. It makes me sad because it reminds me that I hurt God when I sin and I should love God above all things. When I say that line, every time I say that line, I am reminded how much my sin hurts God and I am truly sorry for my sins. What about you? Even if you are not Catholic, and don’t feel you need to go to a priest to confess, do you still bring your sins to God? When you do, are you truly sorry? God is calling us back to Him. This isn’t something that is hard to do, it is a choice we get to make. Will we turn back to Him? Will we repent of our sins and turn back to His loving care?
Although it is not hard to turn back to God, sometimes it may feel hard because we may not believe that God can forgive us. We may feel whatever we have done is too great for God to forgive. I assure you it is not. If you feel this way, read the whole Chapter of Joel 2. In most versions of this verse it starts with, “Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Even now, remind yourself of that when you are doubting God’s forgiveness. No matter what it is that has happened to you, that you may have done, even now, God wants you to come back home to Him.
I want to touch on the fasting piece of this message. Fasting is a way to strengthen your intimacy with God and it is also a way to humble yourself before Him. Fasting can be carried out in many different ways. You could fast from a meal, for instance fast from breakfast, or you could eat breakfast and fast from lunch and then eat dinner. You could also fast for the entire day or for several hours in the day. For instance 9-3 you could fast. You could also fast from things that have nothing to do with food. You can fast from gossiping, or watching TV, or social media. I know several ladies that take a break and fast from Facebook during lent. Fasting can be whatever you want it to be. The point is to give something up for a time period that is important to you. It is cheating if you fast from mushrooms and olives, if you don’t like them in the first place. It doesn't have to be extremely difficult, but it should be something that you like and yet you are choosing to not do it in a desire to grow closer to the Lord.
The second half of today’s verse shows us why we should come back to the Lord. It says, “And here’s why: God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe. Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it now, maybe he’ll turn around and show pity. Maybe, when all’s said and done, there’ll be blessings full and robust for your God!” God is the most patient God, extravagant in love always ready to cancel catastrophe. When people talk about the Old Testament, they tend to talk about a God who got angry and killed people. I have thought the same thing. I mean there are several examples, like Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah’s arc, after they Israelites scouted out the promised land and doubted their ability to take it. However, when you read through the whole Old Testament, you will see that although there are examples where God gave judgement on HIs people, there were far more times when he was lenient. There are more times when He allowed someone to intercede and to ask Him not to do the thing He wanted to do, the judgement that was deserved.
God loves us, He desires each and every one of us to be in His kingdom with Him. He desires and even longs to spend eternity with each and every one of us. He wants us to turn back to Him. If you are struggling with something right now, bring it to God, He will help you with it. If you think either something has been done to you that God can’t forgive, or you have done something so awful that God can’t forgive, I beg to you hear me now, “There is NOTHING God won’t forgive.” Just repent, tell God you are sorry if it was something you did. If it wasn’t something you did, you have nothing to be sorry about and God knows that you. You just have to believe it for yourself now. I will end with the words of this verse, “God is kind and merciful. He is the most patient God, extravagant in love and always ready to cancel catastrophe.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless each and every person listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you for always wanting to forgive us, always wanting to give us another chance to come back to you. We are grateful you give us unlimited chances. We are grateful that as long as we are still on Earth, it is not too late! We are grateful there is nothing we can do that you won’t forgive. Lord we are sorry for our sins. We are sorry that when we choose to do what is wrong or when we fail to do what is right, we hurt you. We are sorry because we never want to hurt you. We love you Lord, you are amazing! You are too good to us and we know we don’t deserve it and yet you do it anyway. You are so patient with us and you keep being patient and we are so grateful. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I wanted to let you know about this new audio training I created. It is about how to invite Jesus into your everyday. Often times we want to pray, we want to spend time with Jesus, and yet we just aren’t finding the time to do so. In this audio training I will teach you to invite Jesus into 3 of the most common tasks we do each day. If you want to hear this audio training all you need to do is go to my website walkboldlywithjesus.com or you can Click Here. It will take you to a page where you can put in your name and email and the audio training will be delivered right to your inbox. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to reach out to me and let me know what you think of it. I look forward to meeting you hear again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!