The concept of an omnipresent, omniscient, and all powerful God can be intimidating, and hard to come to terms with. It means He already knows everything about us. We can’t hide anything from Him. All of our actions, even the ones we hide from the public, He’s already seen. There are no secrets from God. He knows it all. If He knows all this stuff how can God still want me? Or even why do I need him? I mean, how do I approach God in light of all He already knows about me? We approach Him with humility, with thanksgiving, and with repentance. God wants a relationship with us. It is why we were made. A relationship with God is the meaning of life. Look at what God told Ezekiel to tell the house of Israel. “Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil way! Why then will you die O house of Israel'” (Ezekiel 33:11)? Even with God knowing everything everyone has done and will ever do, He still sent His son Jesus to earth for us. That’s right.
Jesus went to the cross willingly. He did not go because of you, He went to the cross for you!
God is holy, He requires perfect obedience. That is something we can never do. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, lived in a perfect world. God gave everyone free will. It was Adam and Eve’s choice to disobey God and to give into the contemplation of Satan. This is when sin entered the world. The price for sin, for disobeying God is death. All life comes from God, and the disobedience of Adam and Eve cut us off from Him, and brought sin into the world. It is why we age and die. We are born with the sickness of sin, and there is nothing we can do to make up for it.
So why didn’t God just end it all there? Why allow people to exist in this broken state? Well, because God had a plan from the very beginning. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, look at God’s reaction. He told Satan the Messiah would be born and will destroy the death sentence Satan brought into the world. This is what God is talking about in this scripture. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15). When God says something it is going to happen, it’s a done deal. It’s guaranteed. A promise that will be fulfilled. This is why our hope should always be in the Christ Jesus. Later when Jesus showed up on the scene, He would bring atonement for the sin, and allow us to join God in heaven for eternity. God removing Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden was for our own good. Lets look at the scriptures. “21The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. 22Then the Lord Good said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’ – 23therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken” (Genesis 3: 21-23). God prepared Adam and Eve for life outside of Eden. He clothed them. He also sent them out so that they could not eat of the fruit of eternal life and be stuck in their sinful state forever.
God loves His people, and has taken care of them from the very beginning and will for eternity. Our entire lives in this broken world are to help turn us to the grace and glory of God. In this broken world we at least are still in the presence of God. I couldn’t image how horrible eternity would be once we’re deprived of it. That’s what hell is, an existence without the presence of God. It’s described in the bible as a place of unquenchable thirst, of consuming fires, and of complete darkness. Doesn’t sound too good to me. This is why God hasn’t just wiped the slate clean and ended it all already. His patience is amazing. God hates sin, but wants as many people in heaven with Him as possible. If Jesus came back right now, think of all the people who wouldn’t be saved…the future generations. A great scripture example of this is Jonah. God sent Jonah to tell the people of Nineveh to repent. Nineveh was very far from the ways of God. It would be like God asking you to go into Nazi Germany at the height of Hitler’s atrocities and tell them to repent. Most of us wouldn’t want to do it, just like Jonah, because we hated them for what they were doing. God can see through those things and into the heart of the matter. God knows who will repent and be saved, and He also knows who will not. It is our duty to be obedient to God in whatever He asks us to do. Jonah finally goes to Nineveh like God told him, even though it took almost drowning and being swallowed by a fish to get him to obey. Jonah still didn’t like the fact that God saved the people of Nineveh, to the point he asked God to strike him dead over an entire nation of sinners being saved. 1“But it greatly displeased Jonah and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. 3Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life.’ 4The Lord said, ‘Do you have good reason to be angry'” (Jonah 4:1-4)? Have you hated someone so much that whenever something good happens to them, it made you hate them even more? I was like that about my ex-wife for many years, until God taught me how to forgive. Jonah then sits on the hill and watches to see what is to become of the city. God makes a plant grow up to offer shade for Jonah. God then orders a worm to kill it and send a scorching heat and wind to make Jonah very uncomfortable. Again Jonah asked to die from his discomfort. He seems to be pretty dramatic, but it was obviously a very bad situation. Jonah gets upset about the plant dying and God’s response is pretty awesome. 9“Then God said to Jonah, ‘Do you have good reason to be angry about this plant?’ And he said(Jonah), ‘I have good reason to be angry, even to death,’ 10Then the Lord said, ‘You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. 11Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 person who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals'” (Jonah 9-11 NASB1995)? I love these passages as it not only shows God’s great compassion for people, His ability to see into the hearts of everyone, and its contrast to man’s sinful perspective. Pay attention to God perspective on the sinful people. Look how he describes them. He basically tells Jonah, you want me to kill people that don’t even know they are doing something wrong? That’s why God sent Jonah, so Nineveh would realize their wrong doing and repent, to change their perspective and follow the will of God. What we see on the surface, may not completely reflect what God sees in someone’s soul. Remember we were all sinners before we became saints…saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The contrast between my deceptive heart and God’s sovereign will. I find myself like Jonah at times, and if I’m not careful will treat people with cold apathy, rather than the love, compassion, and patience that Jesus showed me throughout my life, even before I was saved. See I thought I was good to go before I was saved. Just like Nineveh, I didn’t realize my sin until the Holy Spirit revealed it to me. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). While we were yet sinners….God brought me to the Gospel of John. The adulterous woman brought before Jesus in the temple.
3“The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, 4they said the Him, ‘Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. 5Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women, what then do You say'” (John 8:3-6)? Jesus stooped down to write in the sand and yet the scribes and Pharisee demanded he answer their questions. When he did address them this is what he hold them. “…’He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her’…”(John 8:7). Jesus went back to writing on the ground, and when he stood up again the woman’s accusers had all left. 10“Straightening up, Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ 11She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more'” (John 8:10-11). Go and sin no more….how could anyone live up to that? We all struggle. We all give into temptation. We’re not perfectly obedient to God, that’s why Jesus came to die for our sin…so how did Jesus expect this woman to sin no more? Well here is what Jesus says sin is. Jesus tells us that He will send the Holy Spirit to us. 8“‘And He (The Holy Spirit), when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement; 9concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me, 10and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; 11and concerning judgement, because the ruler of this world has been judged'” (John 16:8-11). That’s why Jesus said go and sin no more, because this woman, through the grace, mercy and forgiveness of Christ Jesus, believed He was the messiah. She gave her life to Christ that moment. This is what Paul is talking about in Romans. 9“that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation”(Romans 10:9-10). Through God’s forgiveness we can approach Him with humility and repent of our sin. 1“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans8:1-2). AMEN! So, this woman believes Jesus is the messiah. Would she go to heaven if she died right then? No, Jesus had not yet gone to the cross. This why we need Jesus. God’s forgiveness was there to show the people who Jesus was, but justice still had to be paid. The wages of sin is death, and a sacrifice was needed to pay for the curse God had placed on mankind after the fall. Jesus death on the cross paid that price. Jesus was blameless. He never disobeyed God, even to the point of dying on the cross for the sin of the fall. That is why God raised Him from the dead. His righteousness for His perfect obedience is placed on us when we put our faith in Him as our Lord and Savior. When we believe that Jesus is the son of God who died in our place and was resurrected from the dead. God does not see the evil we did, but he sees the righteousness of Christ, because Jesus took our place on the cross. When we realize we are trapped by sin in our lives it should humble us and bring us to seek out God. There are many people out there that want God’s forgiveness. They want to hear that the evil in their lives will be over looked, but that cannot happen without repentance.
How powerful is repentance? Remember Nineveh? Look what Jesus says about that people of Nineveh after they repented, turned to God. “‘The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgement, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here”‘ (Matthew 12:41). The grace and mercy of God should lead our hearts to repent. To renew our mind, or change our perspective. Acknowledging the actions of Christ, willingly going to the cross for our guilt, willingly dying for the sin in our hearts, should make us so thankful to Him that we in turn willing lay down our lives…God take my life and use it for Your glory! What does this mean? When we surrender our lives to Christ and receive the gift of salvation, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us…sound strange? We’re all spiritual beings. Our spirit joins with God’s spirit. His light shines inside us, and when we submit to God showing us how He wants us to serve Him, His light can shine on other people’s darkness through us. This is what it means to be a Christian. .
That is exactly why I am writing this book. I want to share the good news of what God has done for me with you. His grace and mercy is for everyone who will answer His call. Something I went through shortly after I was saved, but He didn’t reveal it to me until now. Lets go back to the scripture in Revelations in the preface of my blog.
10 “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. 11 And they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. 12 For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time'” (Rev 12:10-12).
I was an adulterer before I was saved. I had an affair with a married woman. I also knew after I was saved that God washed all that way in His eyes. Jesus righteousness covers me, so when God sees me, He sees what Jesus did for me. But it still nagged at me and I could not shake it, no matter how much I told myself that I was covered by the blood of Jesus. My neighbor at the time, a Christian, would disciple me, and share his wisdom with me. One day I just had to tell him, “Amaha, I just have to tell you man. I committed adultery before I was saved, and it’s been bothering the crap out of me.” He told me confessing our sins to each other was biblical. It helps us heal, and keeps us humble. It did make me feel better, but it wasn’t until I wrote this chapter and revisited the account of the adulterous woman did God finally show me exactly why it bothered me so much. Reading about the adulterous woman, I could feel the shame and humiliation she suffered in front of all those people. They brought her in front of the entire court. What’s the worst part of doing something really wrong? Getting caught, and having your secret exposed. Standing in front of everyone and seeing them passing judgement on you. This is exactly what was bothering me. I knew as a Christian my past was exposed before God. I had no secrets, but I still had to come to terms with my shame. Shame traps us when we have the wrong perspective. I looked right past the way God sees me. I let the shame silence me, instead of letting God use the situation to bring Himself Glory!. 2 “O, people. how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love vanity and seek after lies” (Psalms 4:2)? I was so worried about how people would see me. Just like those who accused the woman before Jesus, and like Rev 12:10 tells us, Satan is constantly tempting us and accusing us before God. He temps us into doing wrong and then tells God, “Hey! Look what he just did!” Satan accuses us before God to bring shame into our lives, especially from our past. He is trying to keep us quiet. Our testimony will reach people for Christ. What you went through, there are others out there, that are in the same place you were. You can reach those people and say look what God did for me, He is willing to do it for you too!
Look at what Jesus said, 7“‘Ask, and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened'”(Matthew 7:7-8). God’s forgiveness is there so we can come to Him and repent. No shame, no humiliation, just a Father with open arms to receive His children. When we repent of sin, when we turn our trust away from what we can accomplish, what this world temps us with, and put our faith in God’s promise through Jesus Christ, it brings us to the cross, where Jesus paid the debt of our sin. When our faith and hope is in the death and resurrection of Jesus, we’re lifted up, just as Jesus was raised from the dead, to new life!
4 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loves us, 5even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly place in Christ Jesus…8For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:4-6,8-10).
Now, our perspective is everything! If our perspective is focused on or around ourselves, we’ll miss what God has for us. What causes new believers to not get baptized? The people I’ve talked to, it’s shame. They don’t feel worthy enough to do it. In all actuality, baptism is a public profession of your faith. Once you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian. You’re worthy once you repent and place your faith in Jesus as Lord, because He is worthy. Here again, shame creeps in and makes us silent. It prevents us from glorifying God. As these new Christians work through their testimony, eventually they are “ready” to be baptized. They have moved from a state of self focused shame to a state of glorifying God through what He has done for them!! Once they realized God’s view of them is the only view that matters, shame will shrink away. God is bigger than your shame. He conquered it. God will turn your shame into His glory. We just have to let Him. Look what He did with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve hid from God in shame after they disobeyed His command to not eat the fruit. “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8). They hid in shame. Shame binds us to such a narrow field of view. Did they really think they could hide from God? Do we really think we can? No way! We deceive ourselves! We already covered the evidence of God’s forgiveness for Adam and Eve when he clothed them and set them out of the garden. God also told Satan that the shame he brought on Adam and Eve, God would use for His Glory, to bring about the birth of the Messiah who would conquer the power of death and bring salvation to all who call Him the LORD God!!
I pray for anyone who is struggling with shame. Whether you are a Christian or not. I’ve been there, and I’m sure I’ll be there again. Salvation is forever, but we’ll get our leg caught in a hurdle from time to time. The grace of our LORD allows us to get back up again and continue on our path. Jesus Christ knows the feeling and weight of shame. Jesus bore the shame of every single person who ever lived and will ever live on the cross. Shame from every possible source, from lying to adultery, every possible source. He died for your sin, your shame, and your guilt! Nothing in this world can fill the hole that these feelings leave in us. Nothing we can do will ever be enough to over come the weight we feel, but the good news is there is hope. There is a way out. “Jesus Christ said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me'” (John 14:6 NASB1995). Jesus is waiting, patiently, for you to answer God’s call, and accept Jesus as your Lord and savior. If you feel that tug on your soul, confess. Tell Jesus you’re a sinner in need of a savior. Tell Him you believe He is the son of God sent as the every lasting sacrifice for your sin. Let the mercy and peace of our Lord fill the empty places of your soul. Find rest in our LORD God. I pray you’ll repent and begin to walk your new life of worship with God.