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Never Too Far Gone

Hello, friends! I hope you have had a great few weeks! In case you were wondering, I took a little break from posting due to my chaotic schedule of finals. I finished my last final of the semester yesterday, which means I am almost finished with undergrad (praise God)!

To recap over the past few weeks, I was a leader for middle school and high school church camp! It was so amazing, and it was so beautiful to see the Lord moving in young people’s lives. With this being said, I started to reminisce of the beginning of my personal walk with the Lord. I was 17 when I first encountered Him; 18 when I decided to surrender my life to Him. In this time, I messed up a lot, temptation felt stronger than it ever did, and I wrestled a lot with God.

In times when I chose sin, I refused to go back to the Lord. I wouldn’t pray, I wouldn’t open my bible for the day, and I would sometimes skip church because I felt so guilty and so undeserving of His love that I refused it. I thought, “How could God still love me after I just did that?” The enemy would whisper, “You can’t go to church now, they’ll call you a hypocrite for what you did. Your worship to Him doesn’t mean anything to Him.” And I believed it for a while, which resulted in me distancing myself from Him.

If you are currently struggling with believing this lie, I want you to read Romans 8:38-39, and then John 3:16-17. Nothing is capable of separating us from the love that is readily available to us from God, which means nothing can stop the boundless grace that pours out to us.

When I read 1 Peter 2:10, it took me back to the way I used to live. “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

This verse is not saying that when we sin, God withholds His mercy from us. This verse is referring to the way we used to live before coming to faith in Christ. When we encounter God, we are also encountering the grace He pours out to us through Jesus. Living a life without Jesus is equivalent to saying you can live a life without grace. This verse highlights the contrast between the former state of being without mercy and the current state of having received God’s mercy through Christ.

Growing up, I oddly thought God would place tests in my life to get me to mess up, almost like He’d want me to mess up so He could say, “I told you so.” In my young adult services at my church, something my pastor once said is that God genuinely wants to save all of His people. He is not evil somewhere down the road. His heart breaks for His lost children.

Luke 15:3-7 is the parable Jesus told of the lost sheep. This is what I am always reminded of when I think back on my previous way of living. As our Shepherd, He leaves the sheep that are safe in search of the lost ones. Would a Father who wants His children to stray away go out and search for them? 1 Peter 2:25. “For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

Something I think we have all realized in scripture is that sheep are mentioned a lot. For some background, sheep are known for their tendency to wander off and their need for constant guidance and protection. They are fragile, curious, wandering, pure, and easily hunted. We are sheep. We tend to wander off the path that God has for us, and Jesus being the Good Shepherd He is cares for us and guides us back into His safe arms.

The worst thing you can do when you get lost on your path is to continue wandering. You have a Shepherd who searches for you. Psalm 139:8 says, “If I ascend to Heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!” Sheol in this verse refers to a place of darkness, stillness, and forgetfulness; the abode of the dead.

This verse reminds me of the omnipresence and the inescapability from God’s presence. We can go up to the highest place or descend to the lowest depths of the earth, and still find God extending His hand out to us.

I have had so many conversations with people who have said things along the lies of, “I feel bad going back to God after I sin because I feel so guilty.”; “I have done so many bad things, I don’t know how to follow Jesus.”; “What if I mess up and sin again?”

To all of these questions, my response is it’s normal. It’s normal to not know where to start on your journey with God, it’s normal to fall short after you surrender your life to Him, and the guilt after sinning is normal.

I mentioned this in one of my previous posts, but the conviction and the guilt I have felt after my old ways of living is what saved me from continuing down that path. The Holy Spirit convicts us to reinforce the task of assessing our heart posture. Suffocating in conviction leads to a greater transformation, and this is not God’s way of punishing us, rather it is His way of reminding us that He loves us and that the offers of the world will always be insufficient to what He can offer.

I pray for every person reading this right now that you get the refreshment of knowing you have a Father who is not ashamed of you. He pours out His love and mercy to His children without expecting anything other than our repentance. Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not in your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

There is absolutely nothing we can do in our own power to deserve grace. His forgiveness and His mercy is a gift no one on earth deserves, but He willingly gives it to us. We have an unaffordable debt to pay, but He covered it for us by laying His life down.

Friend, I hope you know that He is searching for you right now. He calls you by name. He loves you so much. There is nothing you can do that would cause God to stop reaching out to you. You are never too far gone, and you can never earn God’s grace. He pours it out to you once you turn to Him and seek His face.

Some of the best advice I have been given is this: The worst thing I can do after sinning or falling short is to refuse to turn back to God. My young adult pastor asked us in a sermon, “Can you turn back to God after sinning?”

One of the hardest things I think Christians do is turn back to God after they sin. The enemy does such a great job of convincing us to fall for the temptation of sin, and then he convinces us that after we commit the act we are unworthy to seek God’s presence. I encourage you, no matter where you are in life, no matter what you’ve done, seek God’s face. The conviction is His way of transforming your heart, guiding you to a better way of living.

I want to encourage you to audit your heart and your mind by asking yourself, can you turn back to God after turning away from Him? He wants nothing more than to have His children come home. He desires to bring His lost sheep back to safety in His arms.

Thank you for reading, friend! I hope this message spoke to you.