Don't Run from, Run to

“So the LORD called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9

 Genesis 3:8-10

I messed up. I messed up BIG TIME. I messed up so badly to the point where I wanted to turn away from Christ completely. I just knew that God wouldn’t be able to forgive me for what I had done. I had returned back to a place that God had taken me from. A place that I thought was far behind me. Though, In the midst of my trying to hide myself from God, He still called out to me, “Faith, Where are you?” 

At this time in my life, God allowed His word to reassure me of His love for me, rather than my distasteful guilt. In Isaiah 43:4 God says, “Because you are precious and honorable in My sight, and I love you.” When I tried to take myself away from God, I was forgetting that He is longsuffering and slow to anger (Exodus 34:6), and quick to forgive. I was focusing so much on my imperfection rather than the perfect and redemptive nature of my Savior, Jesus Christ, who loves me with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). Instead of trying to cover and hide myself from God, like Adam and Eve did, I can go to Him in repentance. Repentance means to return- feel sorrow and to apologize, turn away from your sins, and turn toward God, so that your sins can be forgiven (Acts 3:19). A sign of repentance is a change in your life that is now patterned after God’s Word, especially in an area where you once fell. I can go to Him instead of away from Him and tell Him my sins and allow Him to wash me clean and forgive me. Something that I am learning is instead of running from God, run to Him, because I can’t hide from Him anyway. It is better to come to Him in open and honest repentance than to keep sin in my heart.

One of our last devotions was that God sees, hears, and knows. He knows us so intimately that He knows the number of hairs on your head. He knows when you have messed up, the same way that He knew Adam and Eve had disobeyed His commands. Adam and Eve messed up. BIG TIME. When they messed up, they hid from God like we all often tend to do. The good news, though, is that through Christ, you can make God’s promises to you a reality, so that when you mess up, you can run to God and be forgiven by the Father, who loves you and cares deeply for you. 

Go Further into Scripture

“Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I go to flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” Psalm 139:7-8 

Sheol is darkness, death, hell. Even when we mess up and make our bed in darkness and in sin, God is still there. There is nowhere we can go to escape Him.

“If I regard sin in my heart, the LORD will not hear me.” Psalm 66:18

This is not because God doesn’t want to listen to you, but because God wants you to be open and honest with Him. Because God is holy, He cannot bear sin. If you are aware of things that you have done that you know are unpleasing to God, tell Him so that you can receive His forgiveness. He says in His Word that when you do this, He will remove your sins from you as far as the East is from the West.

The Gospel/The Good News

None of us are “too far gone,” for God to accept us. Even when we have done something that we can’t tell anyone else. He is able to accept us because of the sacrificial work of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. Christ stood as us before God so that we can stand before God as Christ. How special is that, that Jesus did this just for YOU? And He did not stop there- He sends His Spirit back to us when we believe in Him, so that we can live a righteous life according to His Word, the Bible. That is the Gospel, that if we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and rose again, we will not perish, but have everlasting life.  If you have not given your life to Christ, pray a prayer of Salvation by repenting of your sins and asking Jesus Christ to come into your heart Read Romans 10: 9-10 and John 3:16 for reference.

Prayer

LORD Jesus, there is nowhere that I can go to escape Your presence. You are with me always, and even when I’ve messed up, You still call me back to You. I will fall short, I will stumble. When I do, teach me how to come to You instead of hiding myself from You. You are long-suffering, quick, and ready to forgive me. Help me to be more honest with You, even when it’s hard to do. God, You desire an honest relationship with me, and will not turn me away from You, because no sin is too unbearable for You and no emotion is too hard for You to handle. You created me, and I ask to be placed back in Your care as I trust You with my life, LORD.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.