The Little Letters - Day 13

June 30th, 2023

1 John 3:21 Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. 22 And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.
23 And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.

Okay, let me break these first few words down for you. In other translations, it sounds more like this: “if our heart does not condemn us. . .” In other words, if God is not going to condemn us because of this knowledge that is far greater than ours, we should not condemn ourselves. It simply stands to reason that we shouldn’t let our hearts, which are often filled with guilt and regret, condemn us more than God will. If we allow for this, we are putting our own feelings about ourselves above that of God’s feelings toward us.

Now, let’s be honest here; it is really easy to get down on ourselves and forget how much more God knows about us because we are in our own heads and hearts so much. We simply forget that God is working with a different set of analytics when it comes to us. In fact, I like saying it this way: God believes in us more than we believe in ourselves.

I have told the story of a young man who was in my office, saying that he could not forgive himself for something he had done. We talked of God’s forgiveness, which he understood and accepted, but kept saying he could not forgive himself. It wasn’t until I confronted him on how arrogant it was to put your own feelings in front of how God feels about him that he finally began to listen. It was a weird conversation.

But we do this all the time. I do it all the time. We allow our emotions to supplant the promises God has made to us through scripture time and time again. This is pretty common. It is difficult to remember all the great things that God has said about us, to us, and how much he loves us. You would think it would be easy to remember, but for some reason, it is not.

Perhaps this is why we go back to scripture daily in order for us to be reminded of the truth about what God feels for us. If you have ever doubted it, the best place to go is back to scripture where his promises have been revealed, where his love is shown powerfully, and where he makes it plain again and again how much he loves us, how much he loves you!