Maybe it’s something from your past—before you came to Christ. Or maybe it’s something more recent… something you said, did, or thought as a believer that you knew was wrong.
And now you wonder…
“Have I messed up too badly this time?”
If we’re honest, it can sometimes feel easier to believe God forgives our “before Christ” sins than the ones we commit after we know better.
But Scripture paints a different picture.
In Luke 22, as Jesus’ crucifixion draws near, His disciples—those closest to Him—still didn’t get it. While Jesus was preparing Himself for the reality of the cross, they were squabbling about their future positions in the kingdom, bragging about how they would never let Him down, and falling asleep when He asked them to pray.
It’s not exactly their finest hour.
I wonder how many times they looked back on those moments and believed they had failed God.
How about you?
Do you ever feel like you have failed Him? Maybe you promised yourself you’d never fall into that old pattern again… and then you did. Maybe impatience took over, words were spoken you wish you could take back, or discouragement led you to pull away instead of pressing in.
If so, you’re not alone.
And that leads to an important question:
What does God do with people who know they’ve failed Him?
Have you ever found your thoughts drifting toward something you know isn’t right?
Maybe it seems small. Manageable. Easy to control.
But sin is never as harmless as it appears.
We often convince ourselves we can handle it—that we can entertain it without consequence. But sin has a way of quietly taking hold, pulling us further than we ever intended to go.
And it never affects just us.
What begins in the heart eventually spills over, impacting the people closest to us—often in ways we don’t immediately see.
In today’s passage, we’ll see what happens when sin is tolerated rather than confronted—through the effects of polygamy and a failure of both parental and spiritual leadership.
But that’s not the whole story.
In the middle of it all, we’ll also see the steady faithfulness of one godly woman—and the even greater faithfulness of God.
As we come to the end of the book of Judges, we see a sobering pattern: one sin leading to another, until the results become increasingly dark, destructive, and heartbreaking. The stories are unsettling—so much so that they can almost feel shocking to read.
And yet… they don’t feel as distant as we might expect.
In many ways, the kinds of things we see in Judges echo what we see around us today—brokenness, violence, confusion about right and wrong, and a growing resistance to God’s design.
Scripture shows us where that path leads.
And it also reminds us that God is patient—but not indifferent. There comes a point when He says, “Enough.”
So the question for us isn’t just what’s happening in the world…
Our perception, the filter through which we “see” everything, has a tremendous effect on our lives. I often tell people in counseling that we are affected much more by what we think about what happens to us than what actually happens to us. So how do you view the events of your life? What is your filter? Are you looking through the lens of Scripture or through the world’s lens? Are you seeing through the sovereignty of God or through a self-focused lens?
In today’s Old Testament reading, we see God’s swift punishment for idolatry. Though God is patient and merciful with us, it doesn’t mean He’s changed His mind about sin. Sin and idolatry still have painful consequences. But the problem is that idolatry has a blinding effect. And we can become blind to our blindness.
We end up blinded about how we grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin against God, blinded about the extent of our sin and how it hurts others, blinded to the source of our sinful choices, and finally, blinded to how easy it is to justify our sin.
So, how can we tell if something in our lives, even something good, has become an idol?
Have people close to you ever thought you were crazy? Have they accused you of being a fanatic or turning away from your family traditions? Or have you ever had to choose between honoring Christ and honoring those traditions?
And what about outside the family, maybe in the workplace or at school? Have you ever been subjected to belittlement or persecution because you took a stand for Christ?
Why does God allow His children to experience rejection and persecution, anyway? Could there be a purpose to it?
And from our Old Testament reading about the sacrifices required for a leper, what do sacrificed birds, blood, water, and other rituals have to do with our relationship with God? Why was it important enough for God to record it in His Word?
Read about these and other subjects in today’s post.
Plagues and epidemics have been part of human history since the fall of man. Of course, the latest one is COVID-19 and all of its variants. But there is a plague that is even more contagious and disfiguring, the plague of sin. Paul warned us about contagious sins. We can pick them up from others and, worse yet, we can be carriers spreading them to those around us.
Have you allowed yourself to be exposed to some contagious sins? Are you protecting your family from over-exposure to them? Or worse, could you be guilty of spreading contagious sins to others?
I hope I’m not the only one who falls so easily into the trap of grumbling and complaining. After all, it seems like such a little thing! And, let’s face it, there are plenty of things to gripe about. Yet, in reality, we’re not just complaining about our circumstances or other people, but against our Sovereign God. We’re called to shine the light into a dark world, but it’s hard to shine when we’re whining!
So, what should we be doing? And what is the ultimate answer to the things we gripe about?
Have you ever looked around at the lives of others and thought that life just isn’t fair? Maybe because you’ve been treated unfairly in the workplace, in your family, or maybe it seems even by God? What should we remember when we’re tempted with thoughts of “It’s not fair!”?
We’ll also look at how one of the psalmists prayed when he felt like life wasn’t going his way and how pride blinds us to the seriousness and the consequences of our sin.
It started right there in the garden. The serpent tempted Eve with a thought, “Did God really say …?” The first step in his deception was to get her to doubt God, and he’s still whispering the same question today. What is he tempting you to doubt?
But God didn’t give up on mankind. His response provides hope to us all. And in the next chapter of Genesis, He counseled a young man. Could that counsel be something you need to hear?
Also read about the murder of dozens of innocent babies by a jealous, paranoid king, the danger of thinking we’re smarter than God, the importance of honoring parents, and some examples of fulfilled prophecy.
