Do You Need To Forgive God?

 

Let's be honest, some of us need to forgiven God. When something bad has happened in our lives or something did not happen the way we expected, it's easy to ask, "How could God let this happen?

But God is not your enemy. His actions toward you are always good. God is only good and His mercy endures forever. Psalm 118:29 The devil wants you to believe that "bad stuff" is God's fault or that He allowed it. The devil knows that if you are mad at God, he's got you separated from your help.

I amazed that many times, Christ-followers will quit going to church when they go through difficult times. This is no time to let go of God!!! Corrie Ten Boom once said, " When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer."

There is an easy way to tell if something came from God or the devil. In John 10:10 Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

That’s pretty plain, isn’t it? If there is stealing, killing, or destroying happening, it is the devil’s doing, not God’s.

Broken

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Psalm 51:17

We live in a world when something is broken it is discarded and replaced. There was a time when broken things were fixed but not today. Even when a marriage is "broken", it is easier to divorce than to go through the difficulty of restoring the relationship. We do not consider anything that is broken of any worth. But God often sees brokenness as desirable.  

Brokenness is often necessary:

• It takes broken soil to produce a crop
• Clouds must be broken to give us rain
• A diamond must be "broken" to become a precious gem
• Grain must be broken to create bread
• Grapes are crushed to create wine

God often uses broken people, like you and me. We are all broken (Romans 3:23).  Every Superman in Scripture, except Christ, had his Kryptonite moments. If we were to take a roll call of the Bible's greatest losers who in time became God's greatest winners, it may look somewhat like this: 

• Moses was a murderer and disobeyed God (Exod. 2:11-12; Num. 20:11).
• Rahab was a prostitute (Josh. 2:1).
• David was an adulterer and a murderer (2 Sam. 11:4, 15-17).
• Peter denied Christ (Luke 22:57, 58, 60).
• Jacob was a deceiver (Gen. 27:1-29).

If you study Scripture, you will encounter some of the people God used, even though they were broken. People like Moses, Ezekiel, Naomi, and Rahab showed me the other side of brokenness. No matter what broken state we are in, we are never beyond God’s reach. We are never so far gone that God cannot make us effective for God’s purposes.

 I read a true story of a boy that loved to color. He loved to color so much that he would only use Crayola crayons. He would not use any other brand. Sometimes he would come crying to his mother because one of the crayons was broken. She wisely said, “Broken crayons still color baby!” A child may not understand that but as adults we need to realize that though be are broken, He can (and will) still use us.

 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

What Are We To Do?

You are probably as concerned with the condition of our country as I am. It seems we are unraveling at the seams. As Christ-followers, my wife and I pray daily for our country and our President. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 We believe that even through this chaos, God is still in control. Romans 8:28  

As I look over the seemingly insurmountably conditions, my mind goes to a situation Israel found itself. In 2 Chronicles 20  King Jehoshaphat finds himself surrounded by an enemy army. The king was vastly outnumbered. so fighting was not an option. He did not know what to do but what he did do was applicable to our country as well.

He assembled the city together and called out to God. 2 Chronicles 20:3-11 His only hope was God. " For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on  .”

In today's culture, praying to God in our time of need seems archaic. In fact, forgetting Good in our lives and in our nation is why we are in our present situation.  I don't want to be simplistic but the solution to our problem simple. 

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 we read "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

Our problem is, we are too proud to humble ourselves before God and acknowledge our need of Him.