I’m sitting here thinking about redemption. Jeremiah 29:11 has for many years been my favorite verse. I very rarely read the next three with it. Starting at verse 12, Then you will call on Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.13, You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. 14, I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, “declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Wow! I don’t know how many of you sometimes relive your past wrongs and then begin to beat yourself for the things God has already forgiven you for, but I tend to do that a lot.
There was a time in my life where I purposefully walked away from the Lord because I held Him responsible for the things that had happened to me as a child. In my heart, I knew it was the sick world, but in my head, I wasn’t going to live for someone that let that happen to me. Boy oh boy did I ever dig a pit. There are times I look back at that time in my life and wonder how I’m still breathing. I’m in a study right now and I’m going to share what hit me square in the face today. Psalm 130:3 says this, Lord, if You considered sins, Lord, who could stand? The key word is if. He doesn’t keep a record. Jesus took my sins for me. What I need to remember, and what I want to focus on, is the fact that because I repented, I’m forgiven.
Colossians 2:13-15 says When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us ALL our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Not only has He forgiven ALL my sins, He will make a spectacle of the ones still trying to keep me down with them. I will literally get to thinking about all the things I did and I get myself so down. For years this has affected my self worth and esteem. God isn’t going to use me. How could He? I did…! Well let me say what someone else said to me the other day. God’s promises are always the same. They, like Him, never ever change. I am making a decision today. Whenever the enemy tries to take me back down that road of self loathing, I’m going to do some things differently. One, I’m going to tell him to get bent. I can no longer allow him to try to steal my joy. Satan, I am forgiven. All that is in the past and God has kept no record of it. Two, I need to recognize it for what it is. It’s self absorption and pride. It might not seem like it, but I‘m dwelling on myself and putting all that in front of what God has done. That, in itself, is sin. God forgive me. Third, I’m going to take God at His word. Psalm 130:7 says, “O, Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is FULL REDEMPTION.
I AM REDEEMED
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