Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: If your sins are like scarlet, will they become like snow? If they are red like crimson, will they become like wool?” Today's episode talks about what an amazing grace it is when our sins become like snow. It addresses some of the difficulties we run into when we are thinking about repenting. This episode also talks about how important it is that we accept God's forgiveness. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Your Sins Become Like Snow
Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord: If your sins are like scarlet, will they become like snow? If they are red like crimson, will they become like wool?”
I am a part of a healing ministry and we have a healing service coming up in two weeks. Before the service the leader sends out a different prayer point for each day along with scriptures to go with the prayer point. Today we are to pray for God’s mercy and forgiveness. We had several scriptures and this was one of them. I liked this one because of the imagery and because of the message. I like the idea of my sins changing from scarlet to white like snow. I love thinking about God’s mercy. Do you ever spend time and think about God’s mercy? Do you think about how all of your sins are forgiven just by asking God and then repenting. You can’t ask God to forgive your sins when you aren’t sorry for them. However, if you are sorry and you repent, your sins are forgiven. It truly is that simple.
I talk to my kids a lot about how things can be pretty simple and yet they are not easy. It can be simple to confess your sins and to be forgiven and yet it is not always easy. It isn’t always easy to walk into a confessional and tell the priest all you have done. It isn’t even easy to find a day or time that you can go to confession. The enemy knows how powerful it is when you go to confession. He knows what a great grace it is for your soul and he doesn’t want that. He will do whatever he can to get in they way. Have you ever noticed when you want to go to confession, you can’t find somewhere that is open? Did you ever notice how you plan to go Saturday at 3 and yet somehow always manage to forget or something else comes up?
There are many churches within a 30 minute radius of me. There is probably confession most days. Actually, I think there might be confession every day available at the shrine in Lowell. The problem is not the availability of confession the problem is the thoughts the enemy puts in our heads. As soon as we start looking for somewhere to go to confession we start to think of all the reasons we can’t make any of those available times. We start to think about what and inconvenience it is to go and we start to tell ourselves that we can just tell God our sins, we don’t need a priest. However, that is the enemy keeping you from an amazing grace. Fight through the temptation not to go. If you have never been to confession with a priest can I suggest you give it a try. There is just something about the grace that comes from it that makes you feel amazing. You truly feel like your scarlet sins become white as snow. You feel so clean and so free.
Even if you do not believe that you need to go to a priest to confess your sins, even just confessing them to God is not always easy. It’s not easy to admit when we messed up. It’s not easy to claim our failures. It’s not easy to approach God time after time and say, “I messed up again. Yep, I did the same thing I keep telling you about.” Even though God forgives us every time, even though God loves it when we come to Him with our sins, it still is not easy for us to tell Him over and over again.
It’s also not always easy to be sorry for our sins. This may sound strange, but we live in the world and the world make sin seem fun. It has normalized sin so much that we don’t always feel sorry for doing things we know are wrong. Instead we try to justify it and try to convince ourselves that it really isn’t that wrong. The example that comes to mind for me was when I was watching Game of Thrones. I knew I shouldn’t really be watching it because of all the graphic sex scenes in it. Yet, I really wanted to know what happened in the show. I justified it to myself saying the sex scenes were not the reason I was watching it, and that there was more to it than just those scenes. However, I felt bad every time I watched it. I knew for me, it was wrong and yet I really wanted to watch it anyway.
The same can be true for something you might be doing. What about if you had an affair? Do you think that would be something that would be hard to confess, even just to God? What about if you were unkind to your spouse or to your kids, would that be hard to confess? The thing about sin is that it is usually accompanied by shame. When we know we are doing something that we shouldn’t be doing we start to feel shame. When we feel shame we usually don’t want to talk about it. Shame does not come from God. Some people think that is God’s way of letting them know what they are doing is wrong. That is not true. God does sometimes correct us but never with shame. Shame comes straight from the enemy.
If you want to know if something is from God or from the enemy the Bible tells us that we can look at it’s fruit. What is the fruit of shame, meaning, what does shame produce? Shame produces bad feelings. It not only makes us feel bad, it also makes us feel alone. It makes us want to hide so that no one knows what happened. It makes us want to keep that thing that we did a secret. It makes us feel like we need to stay in the dark. Does that sound like it would be from God? God is all about light, not darkness. Confession can bring those sins into the light. It can remove all shame if you let it.
The thing about confessing our sins to a priest or to God is that we need to accept His forgiveness. It does no good if we confess and then refuse to accept His forgiveness. It is important that we believe God loves us more than we could ever really know. It is important to know that God is merciful and forgiving and he is just waiting for us to ask, so that he can forgive us. He is just like the father from the prodigal son parable. God is there waiting patiently for us to confess, for us to realize the error of our ways. When we do He is right there to welcome us back with open arms. He is a good and loving father. He does not want to punish us He wants to love us and to hug us. God can make our sins white like the snow. We just have to let Him. We just have to believe and accept his forgiveness. What if we each took 5 minutes right now and thought about all the things we have done that might have offended the Lord and then told Him we were sorry. What if we just decided to say that thing that we have been afraid to say? What if we said the thing we are sure he couldn’t forgive and then accept his forgiveness. If you are truly struggling to believe that He could forgive you I recommend talking to a priest or your pastor. I recommend doing a bible study on God’s love or God’s forgiveness. You do not have to keep living with shame or guilt. That is not what God wants for you! He wants us to all be free!
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to be forgiven, please help us. Lord, help us to believe with our hearts and minds that there isn’t anything too big for your mercy. Help us to believe you are a loving Father waiting to welcome us back each time we repent. We love you Lord and we are so grateful you are so merciful. We ask that you put on our hearts anything that we need to talk with you about Lord. I pray that each person listening to this has a conversation with you today about whatever is heavy on their heart. 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 want to remind everyone that I am on vacation in Maine and there is no internet accept at the Lodge. So I am still planning to post each day, however, depending on the internet connection and what is going on with the family I may not be able to. If I miss a day just know that nothing is wrong, I am just enjoying vacation and/or there was no internet connection. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!