We’ve all made mistakes. Some mistakes are small, inconsequential.
That one turn on a side street to avoid gridlock traffic that added a few minutes to your morning commute? An annoying miscalculation, but not life threatening.
Branching out to order the No. 3 instead of your usual? Disappointing and too spicy, but not insurmountable.
Then there are other mistakes that we’d give almost anything to undo, the ones that have been life-altering, leading to grave consequences. We’ve confessed them to the Lord and still memories seem to plague us.
The rash words spoken in bitterness and anger. Those actions meant to let someone else know what it feels like to be mistreated. The love and kindness withheld because “it serves them right.” The deeds done in darkness to try and forget the gnawing pain, even if only for a moment.
These mistakes are the result of a very real sinful nature that opposes the nature of God now residing within us. We’re left feeling . . . dirty? Tainted? Less than? Maybe even broken? If not dealt with, we get the sense that we didn’t make a mistake, but we are the mistake.
God did not make us to hold onto the heaviness of our past or the shame. While sin can hinder our ability to connect with the Lord and requires repentance, for many believers what is often a hurdle to intimacy with the Lord is how we view ourselves and our past.
We’ve all made mistakes and we’ve all sinned. But we are not mistakes—we were formed and fashioned by the hands of God, out of the mind of God for God—and because of the blood of Christ, we are not our sins or our poor past decisions.
God is not ashamed of us. And the things we’ve participated in the past were not enough to stop Him from creating us or pursuing us.
He knew every mistake long before He called you. And they weren’t terrible enough to keep Him from wanting to lavishly love you. In fact, the opposite happened. Knowing all those things, Jesus still made the decision to take the brutal, humiliating path to the cross and pay for our every mistake and sin with His very life.
This is love.
For those who could never make themselves clean or pay the price for every nasty word spoken, every bitter feeling, every trace of worry, every second of immorality, every angry thought, every jealous feeling, every moment of knowing the right thing to do and deciding not to do it, Jesus paid the debt (1 Jn. 4:10), then gave us so much more.
Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore in their land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be theirs. (Isa. 61:7)
This is reality for those who have put their trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
But many times, the enemy tries to cloud our view of this truth. Instead of seeing ourselves in our rightful position as children of God, seated in heavenly places with the free access to the Trinity, welcomed into the presence of God, he tries to draw our attention to his lies.
The accuser of the brethren hurls his well-honed fiery darts at our hearts, trying to conjure doubts in our minds. The lies are relentless:
God couldn’t possibly love me.
I’ve sinned too much to expect God’s goodness.
I don’t deserve God’s forgiveness.
I haven’t changed.
I’m too messed up for God to really love.
An avid observer, the enemy carefully chooses the lie that most connects with what we believe to be true. The lies are subtle, but effective and potent, blows to our identity in Christ when we accept and reinforce them with our own mouths.
Like a boat that was left untied to the dock, we begin to drift. This is the enemy’s tactic—wanting us to feel too unworthy to come into the Lord’s presence or even cry out to Him for the help He so freely offers.
So when the Lord continues to pursue our hearts, extending His ongoing invitation for nearness and intimacy, we shrink back from His kind hand instead of rushing forward into His open heart.
This is the reaction orphans have when they don’t know they are fully loved by a kind Father, forgiven by a holy God, and desired by a loving Comforter.
If we’re not constantly feeding on the truth of Scripture, we are more apt to believe the lies.
The love and sacrifice of Jesus, went farther than the depravity of sin. He cleansed and covered us so thoroughly so that we would look like Him, the One who knew no sin, and have unbroken fellowship with our kind God.
This is what we’ve been been freed into by the blood of Jesus, what we must willingly accept in order to fully enjoy intimacy with our Creator and Shepherd.
As we stay in the Word, His great love, this invitation, remains our strong, impenetrable fortress against the waves of the enemy’s accusation, harsh words from loved ones, sin, and self-doubt.
But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2:4–10)
Go ahead. Take the leap into His love for you. And then, ever so slowly, you may notice your hold on the shame of your past mistakes loosen, allowing you to go deeper into what the Lord has for you—His love, His goodness, your purpose, and your true self.
