Daily Devotional

Today, I have found myself thinking of how easy it is to become self-satisfied with our spiritual progress or lack of spiritual progress.  We might even say that our lives cannot be different this side of heaven and we are tired of trying.  As a result, we stay bound up with activities and ways of thinking that make us feel better momentarily.  But we do not have to stay chained to those thought patterns and activities.  We can experience true freedom in Jesus Christ.  God wants us to find freedom spiritually so that we can experience fulfillment, satisfaction, and peace through living out His purpose for our lives.  Today, Jesus is inviting each of us to experience that freedom.

Jesus taught, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28

If we are honest with ourselves, we often repeat certain patterns in our lives.  We respond to life’s problems by running to resources other than the Lord, to give us comfort and peace.    When we run to things other than God for coping, we tend to make them idols.  An idol is anything we put in the place of God.  There are things in all our lives that tend to be idols for us.  Jesus wants us to be free and to no longer experience brokenness.  This will take more than our strength to overcome.  Are you tired of trying in your own effort to be free of the brokenness in your life?  Jesus offers to bring healing and change if you will bring your woundedness to Him.

Jesus gave His life not just to fix us for the moment but to give us a hope and a future.  He wants us to walk in a freedom that allows us to build an authentic and growing relationship with Him.  The Apostle Paul writes in Titus 3:3–5, “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.  But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit…”

Notice what we once were.  Paul does not paint a very pretty picture of us before we came to Christ.  We were a mess and totally lost.  As a result of God’s kindness and love, He touched our lives.  He saved us through the completed work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection.  Not by our own righteousness but by what Christ did on our behalf.  He showed mercy and regenerated us.  Through this new birth or change of life, He wants to heal our wounds and brokenness caused by years of sin or other people’s sin that have affected us.

God has a great desire for us to experience healing.  His love and concern are far greater than anything we can imagine.  Hebrews 10:17 states, “Their sins and lawless deeds I (God) will remember no more.”  The writer of Hebrews is not stating that God will conveniently have a bad memory or as we say it, “a senior moment.”  This would be impossible for God.  What he is saying is that God will no longer hold our sins against us.  God will not let our sin affect our standing or influence His attitude toward us.  He has completely forgiven us in Christ.

God wants to break the power of the past in our lives by bringing it out into the light so that we can experience healing.  We cannot change the past, but we can change how we allow it to affect us.  The Apostle Paul had things that could have weighed him down, but instead, he made them events that moved him forward.  The events did not change but his understanding of them changed as he looked at them through the eyes of God’s forgiveness.

Remember the words of Joseph to his brothers, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good…”  (Genesis 50:20). Joseph began to look at the events of his life from God’s perspective.  Today we need to see the things from the past with the eyes of the Lord.  Often, we are shackled by the regrets of the past.  God wants us to be free from all the regrets/shame and He has made that possible through the forgiving power of Christ.  Will you accept and live in that forgiveness today?

Prayer:  Lord, it is so easy to let things from the past impede our spiritual progress.  Help me to understand more fully your forgiveness.  Thank you that we can bring to You our wounds knowing You will bring healing.  Help me to break the broken cycles of the past and find true freedom in You.  Amen

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