Dave White

Do you ever sin?  (Ever disobey your Creator?  Ever spit in the face of the Savior?  Ever rebel against the King?)  I do.  As a Christian, I am so frustrated at my own sinful behavior.  I love Jesus, so why do I oftentimes act as if I don’t?!

If it were not for God’s reassurances in the Bible, I would be utterly disheartened.  However, when I read His Word, He reminds me again and again that He’s not giving up on me.  I am frequently encouraged by phrases like “He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust” (Psalm 103) and blunt, practical statements like “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” and steady reassurances like “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” (1 John 1)

There is a character in the Old Testament of the Bible named David.  As my name is also David, I have taken particular interest in this man and in what his walk with God looked like.  Once, after David sinned grievously against God and hurt a bunch of people, he wrote a song expressing his sorrow and repentance before God.  I read this chapter recently and was amazed at how God reassured me through this psalm: Psalm 51.  It begins with these words:

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to Your steadfast love;
according to Your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

As I looked at this passage the other day, my attention was drawn to three verbs: blot, wash, and cleanse.  As I considered these words, I realized that each of them describe a continuing action.  These are transitional words.  They speak of a process, not a single, one-and-done event.  Blotting a stain out of clothing takes time.  Washing your car can take a while if you do a good job.  Cleansing is a steady and sometimes difficult process.

God is far more patient with me than I am.  He is willing to work on me over the course of months and years and decades.  He is patient with you, too.  One of Jesus’ disciples, Peter, put it this way, as he was trying to explain God’s ways to the early Christians:

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3)

God wants everyone to “reach repentance.”  Repentance is turning away from your sin and turning to God, and it’s something a follower of Jesus needs to do every day.  I began this walk of repentance about 21 years ago, and God has been patient with me ever since, gradually transforming me to be more like Jesus.  Thank You, Lord!

One last thing.  Although God is patient and gives grace and mercy, His patience, grace, and mercy are no excuse for continuing in sin.  The whole point of repentance is to turn back to and connect closely with God.  God is good and perfect, and He cannot mix with sin.  Another one of Jesus’ early followers, Paul, after describing God’s generous grace and forgiveness, put it this way:

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6)

If you are caught in the net of sin, God is patiently waiting with open arms for you to turn back to Him in repentance.  I urge you to run to Him and find grace.

Your fellow work in progress,

Dave White

PS- God did have mercy on David (the Psalmist).  He cleansed him from his sin and used him to bless the entire world through his descendent, Jesus the Messiah.  God can forgive you, and He can use you to bless the world, too.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.   And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

…

And [Jesus] said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”   And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things.

…

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent!” And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.   Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God.This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.

On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

…

Then [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.

To live a life persuaded – convinced – set is what we are called to. This however, doesn’t just happen. It isn’t just a decision that we make although that plays a part. We need something more, because without the something more, we will flounder and fall at the first second or third hurdle. I believe Paul being persuaded came by a revelation of the person of the Lord Jesus and as a result he was set, or ‘steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord’. He saw Jesus and the price that He paid, and that was enough.

C. T. Studd said, “If Christ be God and died for me, then there is nothing too great that I can do for Him.”

The Apostle Paul was many things (Tent Maker, Old Testament scholar, evangelist, church builder, disciple maker, fearless missionary, and probably many other things I can’t think of at this moment). All of this flowed from a passion or for Jesus.

Let’s look at what Paul wrote in Romans:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

Was Paul certain about his claims to the Love of God? He says he was convinced – that sounds certain to me! How convinced was he? He uses some pretty solid comparisons to show his conviction.

He says neither angels nor demons – the absolute extremes of good and bad. He says neither the present nor the future – the only two points in time we can impact. He says, nor any powers – not just some powers or a select group of powers – any powers. Then he finishes with, height or depth or anything else in all creation – that sums up all other possibilities. I think he was very certain of his conclusion.

Paul indicates a certainty, a conviction beyond any condition that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Why was he so certain? Paul had a history with Jesus (see Acts 9:3-6). After meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul entered into a relationship that would last the rest of his life and across the known world. He endured stoning, beatings, shipwreck, angry mobs and many violent responses to his message of love from above. And by and through all of this he developed a conclusion about the ability of the world to separate us from God’s love through Jesus.

Maturity as a Christian takes time. I wish I could say it comes at the point of acceptance of Christ’s Lordship, but all of us must grow to maturity after we accept Christ. Hopefully, our growth does not come with the trials that Paul endured as he developed his certainty of God’s love, but we must grow if we are to ever be more than baby Christians eating baby food and doing baby things. Hopefully, as we grow, we will come closer and closer to the certainty that Paul had concerning God’s love through the Lordship of His Son.

I hope you are growing. I know from experience that growth is not easy. The growth we want comes only with effort on our part. We must run the race.

I hope you are growing. I hope you become more convinced of God’s love each day. I hope your confidence grows more and more as you see God’s love through the Lordship of His Son.