"I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he
delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces
are never covered in shame" (Psalms 34:4-5, NIV).
A friend of mine related a life
lesson that the Lord had taught her, “God is not ashamed when she sinned.” As she related to me, the many times
that she had become depressed when she did not always act as a Christian, my
mind went back to the days of my childhood.
During the era that I was raised, a child’s behavior reflected on how
others viewed his or her parents—at least this was the way my parents taught
me. So, if I or one of my brothers or
sisters did not behave well in public then our parents would bemoan the fact
that we brought shame upon the family name, and our parents would “never be
able to show their face in public again.”
Of course they always did; however, this was so ingrained in our
thinking as children that it carried over into our adult lives, and translated
into how we viewed our Heavenly Father.
My friend’s life lesson caused me to
begin to reflect on the fact that many of our ideas on how God thinks about us
are simply not based upon fact; but, rather on a faulty belief system whose
biases cloud our view of how God really thinks about His creation. Perhaps the root of this problem began in the
Garden when Eve’s view of God was distorted and she and her husband sinned. After Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, they
withdrew from God because they were
ashamed: God was not ashamed He immediately began to deal with the problem
and covered their shame (Genesis 3).
God
is not ashamed of sin because He covered humanities sin with the blood of
His Son, Jesus Christ. His blood
sacrifice never looses it power, “And He
Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our only but also for the
whole world” (1 John 2:2). God still
covers sin for those of us who love Him, but at times our behavior does not
reflect who we truly are as His children, “If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Today, do not allow the enemy or
cultural ideas distort your view of God and how He thinks about you. He is not ashamed of you. If you have done wrong, confess it to the
Father, repent—turn from doing the same thing over and over again—by faith
accept the fact that your Heavenly Father is not holding anything against
you—and begin to conduct yourself as a child of the living God.
Prayer—Father
I thank You that You are never ashamed of me.
Lord forgive for the times that I have thought that You were ashamed of
me, cleanse my mind and my heart from false ideas and view points of who You
really are, in Jesus Name. Amen.