"Do Over!"

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Romans 3:23

Recently I have been thinking about how many believers allow themselves to be tormented by feelings of guilt and condemnation when they sin and fall short of our God’s glorious standard. They get so down on their selves when they realize that they are still susceptible to sin. We must remember that we are going to make mistakes as long as we are here in these sinful bodies living in this world full of sin and temptation.

Satan and his demonic forces are determined to keep us bogged down under feelings of condemnation and guilt when we sin. These forces immediately try to attack our minds with negatives thoughts like..

“Do you think God is really going to keep forgiving you when you’re always messing up.”

“Real Christians would never say or do that. You’re not a real Christian.”

“See you’re not good enough, smart enough, or know enough for God to use you. You can’t even stop sinning.”

I seriously doubt that I am the only one that enemy attacks with thoughts like the ones above. I know this because the Word of God says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. (Revelation 12:10) These accusing thoughts and words are straight from the pits of hell. The Accuser wants us to have a “woe is me” attitude and give up. He knows that if we are busy beating ourselves up, feeling guilty, condemned, and unworthy we will not want to enter God’s presence to receive His forgiveness, mercy, and grace when we need it most. We will be bound by these emotions, unable to be used by our Lord.

Instead of sitting and meditating on our mistakes and our shortcomings we need to remember what 1 John 2: 1-2 says.

“My little children, I am telling you this so that you will stay away from sin. But if you sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. His name is Jesus Christ, the one who is all that is good and who pleases God completely.”

You see our Heavenly Father knows that we are not perfect and that we will sin, so He has given us Jesus Christ to be our Advocate. So we can go boldly before the throne to ask forgiveness and healing. Our joy and peace will be restored because we know that all is well between us and our God.

I remember when we were kids we used to love playing kickball. For those of you that don’t know kickball, it is a mixture of baseball and dodge ball, only the ball is much bigger and softer and you kick the ball. When the pitcher rolls the ball if you miss it or kicked a foul everyone would yell “BALL!” or “FOUL!”, “DO OVER!” You then were given another try, a ‘Do Over’ to kick the ball as far as you could.

That is how it is when we fall short of God’s glorious standard and sin. As followers of Christ Jesus we are trying to live each day pleasing to God, avoiding sin, but sometimes we just miss it and mess up. But if we confess our sin and repent He is faithful to let us try again. So rebuke those negative thoughts and reject that “woe is me” attitude and remember that our Advocate, Jesus Christ gives us ‘Do Overs’. Thank God for that!

p.s.

I suggest also reading Don't Let Sin Control You