ROOTED RENEGADE

I don’t know if you have ever faced this giant, but I certainly have. When I first came back to the Lord, I felt so guilty for all I had done and the ways I strayed that I stayed in a cycle of repentance. Anytime something I had done came to mind, that hurt myself or others, I would repent. And I did this for a very long time.

Until I was faced with this question:

Do you really believe that when you repent God forgives you?

Hmmm…did I? I thought I did. But truth was, I didn’t. I didn’t believe in my heart that once I repented I was forgiven. I believed I had to keep asking over and over again because somehow my guilt and shame over what I had done would be enough to move God’s heart towards me.

But that wasn’t the truth. The first time I repented I was forgiven. The second and third time, I was the one bringing up something He had cast into the sea of forgetfulness (see Micah 7:19).

God wasn’t continuing to remember my past or the sins I committed. I was trapped in a tactic the enemy loves to use against God’s people. The cycle of repentence.

It’s an unholy cycle that keeps many believers from truly trusting that God removes sins. To keep many from believing that the Cross paid for all the sins of the world. And it keeps us from receiving the love of God.

When we know that God forgives us the first time we repent, we are able to receive His grace, mercy and love. When we don’t, then we can’t.

I had to learn to shut down the enemy when he would bring up past sins. But learning it and coming into agreement with it were two different things. 

We can know something but not tap into its power in our lives. And we need to tap into this. Our past is a platform which we can use to help others get free. It’s our testimony. Not an ungodly platform either, but a godly one. When we don’t share our testimonies, then we are hindering what God is trying to do in our lives through the power of it.

It gives God glory when we tell others about how He freed us, saved us, delivered us, restored us, healed us, etc. 

To come out of the cycle of repentance, we have to receive that we are forgiven. We have to receive that what we went through is a testimony, not condemnation (because condemnation tells us to keep apologizing).

We can also look at it like this. When someone apologizes to you for doing something wrong, like your child, do you keep holding it over their heads or do you move on and let it go? If you hold it over their heads, then you haven’t really forgiven them. But if you let it go, then you have. 

God lets it go friends. He doesn’t keep lording it over our heads to remind us of it. When we share our testimonies of what He has done in our lives, it is not bringing up all the bad and parking there again. It’s saying, “Hey, God saved me from a life of _______ and this is how He did it”.

Jesus paid the ultimate price for it all and we honor the price paid when we let it go after repenting. 

I know I for one, as hard as it has been to learn and defeat this giant, am so glad that Jesus paid for it once on the cross….not multiple times. Therefore, I chose to live as though it is finished, even on the days this giant tries to trap me again. Because when it is finished…there is freedom.

Walk in freedom today friends knowing that God loves you. And knowing that once you repent, you are forgiven…and yes, I may not know what you have done, but I know My God. He is the water walking, sin forgiving, way making, God. And He loves us!

Faythe