I
can identify with all three of the categories. In fact, I have seen
cycles of these in my life. I will start out knowing my sin and glad to
be forgiven by the Lord, but then, I will begin to feel good about my
situation in life and pride will set in. All of the sudden,
subconsciously I will be feeling as if I am perfectly fine and don’t
need God’s continuous forgiveness in my life. Forgiveness? I got that
way back when and have no need of it currently. Sure as rain, I will
fall into blatant hard-hearted sin
and feel completely worthless.
At
this point Satan whispers to me that I am too far gone for the
forgiveness God offers. Perhaps I have committed the unpardonable sin.
My heart is too hard to repent, therefore I am like Esau who couldn’t
find repentance though he sought it with tears (Satan loves to use
multiple scripture verses to get at us). I have crossed the line. There
is no going back to that
wonderful place of relationship with the Lord. I am at the end of my
rope, thinking I am too bad to be forgiven.
That
is when I find His grace and forgiveness anew. I relearn that it isn’t
based on what I can conjure up emotionally or spiritually - it is just
His marvelous grace sweeping over all of my imperfections and
shortcomings. And then, I am back where I started. Completely aware of
my own
need for His forgiveness and totally aware that He offers it freely to
me. How wonderful it is to be in that state!
Sadly,
all to soon, I repeat the cycle. May God strengthen my reliance on Him,
and help me never to feel secure in my own way of life, but instead,
always seeing my need for His grace.
If
I had to identify with just one category listed, in all honesty, it
would probably be “too good to be forgiven”. I am always fighting my
legalistic nature that is pressing on me and telling me how much better I
am than others. I keep all of the reasonable laws down to a tee and
those people over there, their standards are way too low, goodness me,
how can
they even be saved? And those people who have higher standards, well,
they're just a bunch of legalists! Woe unto you, Pharisees!
