Getting Real With God

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:6

This is the beauty of the gospel. All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are sinners by nature and by choice. In the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, the prophet caught a glimpse of the enormity of the sacrifice God would make by sending his only begotten son, Jesus, to redeem us back to himself.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been going through some pretty hard stuff. Spiritual warfare at it's finest! Not being able to get through it on my own, I finally broke before the Lord and asked him to reveal what I must do, where am I missing it. The answer was so simple that on my own I would have never found it. Jesus already won the victory. I needed to get real with God, and confess that on my own I can do nothing. This morning, this scripture in Isaiah 53 brought it all into focus. Because I am a sinner by nature and by choice, God provided the sacrifice that it would take to restore a right relationship with him because I could not do it on my own. It is a free gift, not obtainable by works so I have nothing to boast about.

I had to take my eyes off my circumstances and put them back where they belonged in the first place, the cross. If I lost everything I have, my house, my stuff, my freedom, my health, my family, everything, as long as I have Jesus I have more than enough.

I must confess, I started off with grace. I understood the gospel that was preached to me ( I Thought ) but somewhere I traded grace for works. My pastor is teaching a series that touched on this very issue. I thought that somehow I needed to be at church, at the mission, at Bible study, at every function happening. In addition I needed to allow people to stay at my house and take advantage of my generosity, until it got to the point I couldn't pay my bills. The problem with doing all this stuff, is that somehow I thought that by doing this stuff it would prove that I was a "Good Christian." I somehow thought that I could earn grace. Jesus said come follow me. All of a sudden I wasn't following Jesus, I was chasing him away. It was crazy. Then when the enemy attacked, instead of clinging to the Lord, I fell head first into temptation then despair. I came under extreme condemnation and felt like the biggest hypocrite ever. I was quoting scripture to other people that was convicting me.

I thank God that he didn't leave me in this situation! I thank him that his grace and mercy are new each day, and that through the blood of Jesus, we have access to the throne of grace. I serve an awesome God!

If you would like to know more about Jesus, please click on one of the church links on this page. If you need someone to talk to or pray with, contact me directly; rlwhitener@gmail.com please include "prayer request" in the subject line.

Thanks for following along,
God Bless