On Living to Please God

It had been pressed upon my heart to tell you that Jesus forgives. For some of you, that is a total given. I mean duh, of course God is going to forgive me of my sins, why wouldn't he? For others, this may be entirely new information, so let me say this again:

JESUS

FORGIVES.

There is no sin too big or too small that he can't forgive. Jesus paid the ultimate price so that we can be washed in the blood and live our lives for Him. So saying that, Jesus forgives swearing, drinking, sexual immorality, murder, lying, and the list goes on and on, "...and by His wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5

But... what about once he forgives us? What do we do? Well, it is commanded that we live to please God.

We all make mistakes. Trust me, I have made my fair share of mistakes and I have asked God to forgive me of them. On a bigger, recent mistake, for me, it took multiple prayers over weeks of struggling with this issue to truly feel forgiven of this particular sin. Let me break it down for you:

The first time I realized that I messed up big time, I felt awful and horrible, but I prayed to God and asked for forgiveness and everything was okay, right? Well... sorta..
I soon was tempted yet again and made the same mistake over...
and over
and....

over.

I felt lost and I felt if I told someone about the sinning that went down, I would feel judged for it. So, I kept it bottled up inside. I was even afraid to talk to God about it. One Sunday morning after Brother Phillip gave his sermon I felt something stirring inside of me. At that point I realized, I had to ask for God's forgiveness, and I meant really ask.

Y'all... the Holy Spirit is a powerful thing. When I was walking to the alter at the front of the sanctuary, it felt like I wasn't the one doing the walking--- Jesus must have been carrying me. I knelt down on the steps and at first I really did not know what to say to God, but of course the tears started flowing and the words came out and I could feel God saying "Okay Carol Ann, its going to be okay, WE are going to get through this and you are forgiven." It is crazy to think that God would forgive me yet again, but this time it stuck. I did not sin after that. I just took it one day at a time, and here I am... it has been a long time since that day and I have not messed up since. Thank goodness.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we can't ask God to forgive us and then go back to living in our old ways. Newsflash: I tried that and it did not work. In order to be truly forgiven, we have to ask God for forgiveness of our sin(s), truly mean it and live our lives for Him. It is not easy, let me tell ya, but boy it is worth it!

So now that I've given you a personal story, I'll tell you about some examples of what "living to please God" looks like in a little bit, but we need to start at 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2 and it says, "As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus."

I am in that limbo between an adolescence and an adult, so of course you can imagine all of the temptations of the world weighing down on people my age. As I am in my second year of college, my parents have wanted me to make good choices and to live as Christ did. It is important that I build a strong foundation in my faith now, so that in the future I can be strong enough to not fall short. 

1 Corinthians 3:16 says "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?"  Think about this for a minute: you are supposed to represent God and his love for us in everything that you do. Your body is God's; he gave you life and wants you to live according to His will. (By no means does this mean we have to be perfect, but we need to become more and more like Him.) Let's think about a literal temple, or maybe your church. What are some things that you would not even think twice about bringing to church or doing to the church? (we are still talking about the physical building, not the symbolic meaning of a church body, etc.)

I'm not here to tell you that drinking alcohol can lead to bad decisions, or that tattoos are wrong, or sexual immorality causes a lot of emotional pain, because they are/do, but I feel like most of y'all know this. We know the difference between right and wrong. Many people call that "guilty" or "sinking" feeling you get in your stomach your conscience. I just call it the Holy Spirit.  

If you are still unsure of the specifics check out these particular points in the bible:

• Drinking: Ephesians 5:18
• Dressing Modestly: 1 Timothy 2:9
• Sexual Immorality: 1 Corinthians 6:18 
• Tattoos: Leviticus 19:28
• (I might do a blog post on some of these specific topics at some point)

Here's another example:
Popular social media influencers, Savannah Soutas and Cole LaBrant recently got married. Savvy was a single mother to her daughter, Everleigh. Sav and Cole were pretty vocal about keeping their relationship pure until they got married. Even though Savannah had already had a child, she was still saving herself for her future husband. This situation seems less severe than some, but the couple still were living to please God. (You can follow them at @sav.labrant and @cole.labrant on Instagram, plus they are all over Facebook.)

But now the main issue is "What if I have already messed up in one of those areas?" Have no fear, the Lord forgives. Do not lose hope. Something I have heard before is, "Well, I am going to get through these couple of years and live it up and then when I settle down, I'll go to church and get right with God." It just can't work that way y'all. We are not guaranteed those days. We aren't guaranteed any. What I'm saying is, is that there is a way out. You have messed up and sinned, but God covers it. He wipes it all away and we are new again. Ephesians 4:22-24 tells us "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." 

Yeah, maybe you messed up in the past.

Don't let that affect your future.