Losing Face With God

Life’s Like This — All too often in our Christian walk, we lose sight of what it means to be in Christ. I am not speaking of the stumbles in life that are part of the Christian journey all of us are certain to encounter, but rather the blatant and willful acts of sin that can cause us to lose face, not only with ourselves, but with God. In China, as in other cultures, losing face can mean that one has lost his dignity, social standing, honor, and trustworthiness with someone that may have once held them in high esteem. In a spiritual sense, when we engage in blatant and willful sins, sins that we know go against God’s Word, we can find ourselves in a quagmire of self-deception where we think that there is nothing we can do that can cause us to lose face with God. But when we adopt that mindset, when we let ourselves get caught up in blatant sins, we can then become so enamored by those sins that we find it extremely difficult to abandon them. It’s not that we don’t know right from wrong, but rather that we choose to engage in willful disobedience to the laws of God and His purpose and direction for our lives. Freeing ourselves from the clutches of sin — finding the will, the courage, and the moral fortitude to break the hold of sin over our lives then becomes a spiritual struggle that we sometimes feel we must do on our own because we think we have lost face with God.

Planting Seeds For Christ

Life’s Like This — Never underestimate what the Lord is doing in your life. You may not think it’s important, but it is. What you say to people, how you treat others, the way you handle adversity — God uses these things to reveal himself to the world. When you stand for righteousness and refuse to compromise, you are bearing a witness for Him. [Source: Charles Stanley] — Living your life for Christ is a challenge beyond all challenges. It entails a devotion to reflecting Christ-like behavior, actions, and thoughts in every area of your life. If doing this sounds like an impossible task, it’s because it is. This is the dilemma all christians face in their walk with Christ. While we may have a faith that is unshakable, the realities of life, coupled with our sinful nature, cause us to fall short in our efforts to reflect the life of Christ. We owe our failures to sin that we have allowed to take root and infect the way we think, the way we respond, and the way we act toward ourselves and others. For many of us, we may have doubts that we can ever be used by God — we may think that we are such failures that there is no way that God can find anything redeeming in us that can be used to serve Him. Yet, despite our short-comings, God can use us just the way we are to reveal Himself to others. We just need to allow Him to come into our hearts so that we can be molded into a character that reflects His love for all of us.

In Need of Grace

Life’s Like This — Quite often we sail through life as if we are on cruise control, totally oblivious to the repercussions of our behavior. We have a mindset that we are going to do whatever we want to do no matter the personal consequences and without regard to how our behavior affects others. We don’t have to look very far to see the faults of others — we see them so often on the pages of our newspapers and plastered on the TV screens in our living rooms. But when it comes to seeing our own behavior, we are often short-sighted and clueless when our behavior is inappropriate. Our bad behavior can manifest itself in many ways. It may be the gesture you give to a passing motorist that cut you off on the freeway. It can be the way you snapped at a waitress when she got your order wrong. It can be your short temper that explodes in a fiery storm when you get upset with your spouse or children. Or it can be your lousy attitude that not only ruins your day but those who cross your path not knowing to tread carefully around you. It’s not that we are bad people — we are simply people that at times behave badly and find ourselves in need of God’s Grace.

Fortunately, grace, God’s unmerited favor, is always available for us to embrace and redeem ourselves in His eyes. But what if we extended grace to others? What if we chose to react differently to triggers that set off a chain of reactions that brought out the worst of us? What if we decided that we were going to do our best to reflect the character of Christ? How can making those choices change our behavior so that we are better able to cope with adversity and give us the peace that all of us want in life?

I believe it begins by learning to extend grace to ourselves, where we can learn to forgive ourselves for wrongs we have done to other people. If we cannot learn to forgive ourselves, then can we truly forgive others? So, when you do something wrong, go to God in prayer and ask Him to forgive you so you can rest assured that your sins are forgiven, even when you may think that whatever you did was unforgivable, know that God loves you and is there waiting to extend His grace to you. All you have to do to give the gift of grace to yourself is to tell yourself, “I forgive myself for what I did.” That’s all it takes, a simple statement, a simple prayer, and trust in God.