Messed Up

The Lord let me see recently that being "messed up" is just fine with him, IF I allow him to use my condition for his glory. Let me explain.

I've often felt I have much intelligence, but not much of the Lord's Wisdom; lots to say, but little to say of Value; of some significance, but of little Worth.

Why? Because I've been told that my sin is too great for God to forgive. I truly believe he forgives my sins; that's the reason I can truly praise him as I do. But then it seems I turn around and commit the same sins over, and over, and over again. I feel I keep bringing the same sins to the altar, God keeps washing them away, and I wander off, inevitably to commit them afresh.

The discourager tries to stress to me that I'm in a cycle I will never escape. No matter how high God takes me, the earthly lusts will always return to dash me back into the pit, plop me back into the miry clay (Psalms 40:2 - He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.). I've been told (in my head) over and over that my freedom from the penalty of my sins may be brief and wonderfully inspiring, but I'll always return to my old ways, to the "law" of my body (Romans 7:23 - but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.)

And I've given heed to these mantras of discouragement, from the destroyer of the soul.

I'm MESSED UP. I'm a wretch. No doubt in my mind.

But WAIT.

John 10:10 - The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

The man from Gadara was a mess too (See Mark 5). So was the Samaritan woman (John 4). Cast out by their people, left to wallow in their own muck, shunned (everybody had turned their backs on them) and living amid their own sins. But in both cases, Jesus turned their lives around, and through the redemption of their souls, they became two of the most effective evangelists in the Bible. The "normal citizens" who had turned their backs on these two, in essence became their mission fields. The outcast and the hopelessly messed up, when you add Jesus to their lives, had become extremely effective tools for the spread of God's kingdom.

Lord, I thank you for loving me enough to reach down into the miry clay of my sins, to look past what I DO, and see value in who I AM. I re-dedicate myself to following your lead in my life. Help me have spiritual ears, so I may hear YOUR Word, and not the words of the world. And keep my thoughts turned to you, Lord.

My life is worthless without you, but of infinite Value through you.

Hebrews 10:22-25 (KJV)
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you.