The Return预览

Restoration

You’ve been testing the boundaries ever since you were told as a toddler not to touch the hot stove. You touched it anyway. You’re not a toddler anymore, so hot stoves don’t tantalize you. Now temptation shows up on your screen, and you take the bait. More than once. The burn marks from sins you have committed, in private or on your social media feed, strip you of the ability to keep your sin hidden. You’ve repented, and Christ’s blood grants you reconciliation. Still, you wonder if God can restore you to fellowship and allow you to serve Him again.

Listen to the heart of David as he prays for restoration in relationship to God after his adultery with Bathsheba made the headlines. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.” This is a model prayer for us to be restored to God. 

When God uses repentance to turn us 180 degrees around and reconcile us into right relationship through the blood of Jesus, He graciously restores us and invites us to reach others who—like us—have been burned by sinful choices. As the body of Christ, we need healing as we begin to walk in the fullness of forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation, and restoration. God may use our story to reach those far off from Him to come to know that He is the Messiah and to understand His unconditional love and forgiveness.

We don’t boast about our weakness; we humbly proclaim God’s strength because, as the Apostle Paul writes, “For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Talk It Over:

Grab a pen and paper and write three prayers to the Lord:

1. Lord, I have already repented that left to myself, I have been burned by temptations like _______, ________, and _____. Allow me the grace to believe You have forgiven me. Help me to forgive myself.

2. Lord, with those sins forgiven, will you “Create in me a clean heart, O God”? Will you “Renew a right spirit in me”? I thank you that you have not “cast me from your presence or taken your Holy Spirit from me.” 

3. Lord, will you reveal to me, right now, names of people who, like me, have been burned by sinful choices? Allow me to use the story of your forgiveness in my life to show them the path to your redemption.