“I know it’s wrong, but I’ll just ask God to forgive me afterward.”
Have you ever entertained that thought?
Perhaps we don’t say it quite that bluntly. Instead, we tell ourselves:
God understands.
Everyone sins.
I’ll deal with it later.
After all, God promises to forgive us.
And every one of those thoughts can contain enough truth to make a dangerous lie sound reasonable.
God is patient. He is merciful. And He does forgive His children when we genuinely repent.
But does that mean we can deliberately choose to disobey Him while planning to repent afterward?
Scripture calls sin deceitful, and one of its greatest deceptions may be convincing us that we can choose the sin while somehow controlling what happens next.
We can’t.
But there’s an even more sobering problem with the attitude, “I’ll sin now and ask forgiveness later.”
It may reveal something far more serious than a moment of disobedience.
What could it reveal about our relationship with God?
We’ll talk about that today, along with chocolate-covered dirt, foolish talk, and why something we dismiss as “just a joke” may not be funny to God.
When we look in a mirror, we expect it to tell us the truth—even when we don’t particularly like what we see.
James said God’s Word works much the same way. It shows us what is really going on in our hearts and where we need to change and grow.
And today’s reading in Galatians gives us a particularly revealing look in that mirror.
Paul gives us two very different lists: the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. At first glance, we may be pretty confident about which one describes us. After all, we may not be guilty of adultery, drunkenness, sorcery, or some of the other sins Paul names.
But keep reading.
Mixed right in with those sins are some attitudes and behaviors that can hit much closer to home—things like jealousy, anger, conflict, selfish ambition, and envy.
So, what happens when we stop looking at the sins that belong to other people and allow God’s Word to show us what’s going on in our own hearts?
And when we don’t like what we see, what does genuine repentance and change actually look like?
Most people think repentance and joy are opposites.
Repentance sounds painful. Joy sounds happy.
Yet one of the greatest statements about joy in all of Scripture comes immediately after God’s people are deeply convicted over their sin.
How did brokenness become celebration?
Why did Nehemiah tell the people, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength”?
And why is that same truth just as powerful for believers today?
We’ll also discover how God uses different spiritual gifts to accomplish His purposes, why understanding His character gives us confidence, and how He faithfully works even through the storms we face.
I don’t have to tell most of you that life can get messy. Much of that messiness is the result of our own choices. Those messes and the consequences are often what God uses to get our attention. As a result, we experience sorrow and regret. But is sorrow or regret what God requires? Rather than regret, He calls us to repentance. But what exactly is that? Is sorrow, depression, or something more?
And on a wider scale, have you taken some time to think about your plan to grow spiritually this year? We are never standing still with God. We are either growing or slipping backward. Let’s always be growing.
Blended Families Part 12: Seven A’s of Confession In last week’s post, Blended Families Part 11: How to Start Dealing with Ex’s, we talked about some of the reasons for conflict and the beginning steps of working toward a...
