Liar

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” ~ John 8:42-47 NIV

I read this argument/discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees and I shudder. How often am I a Pharisee in my thoughts and actions? How often am I the liar? How mad or upset would I have gotten if Jesus had said that about me (or in my general direction)?

Yet, He not so subtly reminds us of who the father of lies truly is. And the enemy and his armies will try to do whatever they can to steal our joy, to keep us silent, to stop the spreading of the Truth that is Jesus Christ.

Moment by moment we hear the enemy’s lies:
You’re a liar.
You’re a hypocrite.
Why are you wasting your time with this or with that person?
How can He save someone like you?

And sometimes we hear these messages from the devil and start believing the lies about ourselves, about our faith, about our calling.

Yes, time after time, we may fall short of the glory of God.
Yes, we are sinners.
Yes, we may trip, stumble and fall.
And yes, we may even be in the crowd, caught up in the moment and finding ourselves screaming “Crucify him!, Crucify him!” with our words, our actions and/or our reactions.

But there is one important message that the devil tries to stifle every time, but can’t...

Grace

We are all sinners saved by grace. Saved by what Jesus did for us on the cross. Our sins washed away. Forgiven by the blood. All we have to do is ask, trust and believe.

Believe the truth of Jesus. Stop listening to the lies of the enemy.

If you have trusted Jesus, you are a child of God. Adopted into the kingdom.

Put behind you what may have happened yesterday, a year ago, a lifetime ago. Learn from it. Run from it. And run to the cross and the truth of forgiveness and grace.

You are a new creation in Jesus.

Keep the Faith… Carpe Diem

“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NIV