Home » Guilt
Category Archives: Guilt
GOD WANTS TO DO A NEW THING IN YOUR LIFE
Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
rivers in the badlands. (Isaiah 43: 18-19, The Message)
Don’t keep going over old history…now there’s a challenge! Satan’s goal is for us to be stuck in and limited by our past. In his role as “the accuser of the brethren,” he keeps reminding us of the memories, the mistakes, and the moments of choice that took us downhill.
But as Isaiah said to Israel, God says to us, “Look right in front of you! Be alert. Be present to the now. There are new opportunities within your reach now, if you can only see them. If you are always looking backward, you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
When Isaiah spoke this to the Israelites, his words came at a bleak period of their history. They had made a mess of things. They were in captivity. They had lost everything they thought they would keep forever. They were homesick for the land and the blessing God had promised them.
Though Isaiah had fully acknowledged the troubles Israel had brought on herself and the resultant captivity, he encouraged them with the fact of God’s restoring power. God was by no means through with Israel. He said that even then, in those troubled times, if they would open their eyes, God was making a way through the desert. There was cool, refreshing water where it was totally illogical that it should be there. God was providing right where they were, and if they saw it and embraced His provision, their lives would never be the same. They would come out different, stronger, on the other side.
Perhaps this is a bleak season of your own history. You spend a great deal of time and energy looking back, pondering, “What if…?” and “If only I…” Maybe you have even believed the lie of the enemy that your past has doomed your future. Well, not true! Satan, the accuser, is a great big liar.
Though you may be in a desert right now, Isaiah by God’s inspiration sends hope down through the centuries. Look! Right in front of you! Can you see it? Far from being barren, your desert times can be the greenest and most fertile for growth. Before you get situational relief, you can experience the joy that only comes from the Lord. God will send people across your path that you are to learn from and receive encouragement. Your desperation can drive you into an intimacy with and dependence on God that you might never have sought out in happier times.
Isaiah tells God’s chosen people that God is making a way in the desert, translated in The Message (cited above) as “a road through the desert.” This shows us that not only does God supply the refreshment you need while you’re there in that barren and disheartening place, He has a plan to move you out of that place when the time is right. Your job is to prepare for it and embrace it as it happens.
So Isaiah’s beautiful words revealing God’s mercy and grace echo in our own hearts today, posing a very important question:
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43: 18-19, NIV)
ACCUSED!
I work a great deal in the legal arena, conducting forensic psychological evaluations of those accused of crimes and often testifying in court about my findings. When I give testimony, I raise my right hand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In each case that proceeds, after being heard by a grand jury, an indictment spells out the crime with which the defendant is charged. As the process goes forward, evidence is gathered on both sides, and either a plea or a jury trial resolves the case. The person is either found guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity.
I was reminded of that legal process this morning as I studied the twelfth chapter of Revelation.
Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. (Revelation 3: 10-11)
As believers (“brothers and sisters”), we have an accuser, and his name is Satan. That’s even what the name Satan means in Hebrew – the accuser. He accuses us before God, and he is relentlessly accusing us to ourselves. Not all of Satan’s temptations are to get us to go out and “sin up a storm” in the traditional ways. He always wants us to believe his nasty and insideous lies and therefore to miss out on the abundantly meaningful life God has prepared for us and Jesus has bought with His blood for us.
So the accuser tells us that we’ve messed up, mucked up, and forever fouled up our lives. He reminds us of our past failures and mistakes. He says that we are imposters, and that if only people really knew us, they would be disappointed or horrified. He poses questions that can cause the gullible to doubt God’s love. (Oh, yes, Satan accuses God, too!) The enemy of your soul is an expert at digging up every bit of evidence against you, and then some. The “best lies” are those with some truth mixed with untruth, and Satan is the master of lies.
When you research the original meanings of the word “accuse,” you’ll find that it can actually mean to bring a legal charge. That implies that a law has been broken. Well, we’ve been given God’s laws, and who has kept them all? Further, we’ve all been guilty of alienation from the God of love, whch is the root of sin. Certainly I, for one, am “guilty, Your Honor.” Further, the scripture says that the wages of sin is death. So we’ve broken the law, incurring the death penalty. Guilty as charged!
So when Satan brings those accusations, there’s some truth in them, which makes them hard to defend by your own merit. We’ve all made mistakes. Everyone has a past. BUT…we can overcome the accusations of Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.
First, we can have victory by the blood of the Lamb. Surely enough, the death penalty has been earned. And even more surely, it has already been paid! We first fight the accuser’s charges with this TRUTH. When Jesus died on the cross, every sin and mistake you and I ever made or will make went with Him. Paid! Done! When a prisoner’s punishment has been completely fulfilled, he/she is released! No one can accuse the person further. In the courts, you cannot be tried twice for the same crime. Your enemy tries to get you to submit to trial over and over for “crimes” that have already been tried, paid for, and forever settled.
Second, victory is ours when we “testify.” When you testify, you get on the stand and tell the truth. So when Satan reminds you of all you’ve done wrong and more – remind him that you are declared forgiven and clean by God through the blood of the Lamb. When he whispers that you are not good enough and that you are defective, shout back that Christ in you is perfect and is all you need to accomplish anything to which God calls you. And very importantly, when Satan reminds you of your past, just remind him of his future!
And you will be testifying to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!
newmorningdevotionals.wordpress.com 