What I Deserve

Lately I have been praying about my heart.  Sometimes when my husband responds to me in kindness I can feel my attitude soften.  Well the way I understand it is when my husband responds to me in kindness my excuses and justification for a undeserving harsh attitude I have against him is made clear to me. It is like I repent right then and my heart is changed to a love and acceptance.  As long as my husband responds to me in a harsh way I feel justified in responding back to him in a harsh way.  His sin blinds me from seeing my own sin.  Only grace takes that away.  The anger does not bring about the righteousness of God.

Yesterday I wrote about my addiction and what God was doing in my heart.  I began to be puzzled about why I could read these articles from my counselor before and they hadn't convicted me but Sunday when I had read them I was completely broken over my sin of comfort.

One thing I failed to recognize when I confessed my smoking to my counselor and the people on the forum was how loving they were to me.  My counselor did not shame me or reject me like I expected.   No he doesn't treat me that way.  That is not how he treats me but it is how my hearts treats myself.  One of the ladies on the forum wrote me back with understanding and kindness.  They did not treat me with disappointment but with the truth of what was going on in my heart in the most loving and accepting way.  I was no less a person to them now that they knew I smoked.  I could cry now thinking about it and all the years of shame and guilt it has been used by Satan to condemn me.  My counselor seemed more concerned about me thinking I could obtain some kind of perfection and was wanting me to find rest that only comes from accepting the perfection of Christ for my own.

How do you see Jesus?  Do you feel an under current of disapproval if you did not measure up in what you should have accomplished today.  Is your house clean but you just got to get in that one dirty closet.  Are the kids good but they can make better grades.  If you just work longer and harder...If you could just lose that extra 5 pds, look better, exercise more and hold those shoulders up like your mother always said.

Even at the most horrific time, at the cross, Jesus said Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.  Christ also said it is finished.  That means that the price He paid for your sin was enough.  The Father is completely satisfied.  When He looks at you He knows you struggle in certain areas of sin but He loves and totally accepts you as beautiful and righteous, loved child of His.  Nothing can change the way He feels about you.  You could sin a hundred times this morning before breakfast and He would still adore you.  As a matter of fact we never have a completely sinless act and motive.  All we can do is trust God in all we do.  Apart from Him we can do nothing.  Anything apart from faith is sin.  The work we are to do is to believe in the One who He sent for me.

So what happens when we have this totally unconditional love lavished upon us by God, it brings us to repentance.  Our excuses to sin is overcome by this love that won't let us go.  It makes us long to love others with this love that is poured out in our hearts so undeservingly.  It removes the blinders to our sin, justifying, blaming, excusing. We hate sin.  It crucified our Lord.  We confess it quickly and linger not in condemnation but forgiveness.   We see clearly deeper and deeper into the wells of our hearts as light of love is shinned upon us.  But no longer is our sin the center of our relationship with God. He took that guilt and shame on the cross.   It is a love exchange.  It is to delight and grow in this love that never lets us go.  You enter that Promised Land with Him more and more until your heart knows when that peace is not there between you and God because of you trying to be perfect again instead of realizing the only perfection this side of heaven is in Christ life.  Can you be enveloped in it and the absolute radical love He has for you?  He just does not give us what we deserve but forgiveness, mercy and grace.  His love beyond measure.