I
want to take a moment to thank everyone who took time to read and make comments
on my first blog post! I am so grateful
to have such supportive people surrounding me!
Well,
my first blog post was a message of conviction from the Holy Spirit. This time, I want to focus on that nagging,
ugly thing that usually comes after conviction: guilt. With that, I have a story. (You are going to
find that I have a story for everything!
The lit teacher in me, maybe?)
I
have always known what God’s word says about tithing, but I have not always
been a tither. I gave money to my church
here and there, but it wasn’t 10%, and wasn’t consistent. It’s crazy because I can’t even tell you why
I never tithed other than labeling it as pure disobedience (ouch!). Within the past year as I have grown in my
faith, I decided to finally submit and give my 10% no matter what. I was truly blessed when I started
tithing. Even in those months when I
felt like I wouldn’t make it, God made a way for my family to get by. Everything was great until……
I
can’t even tell you a legitimate reason why I did not tithe during that one
fateful month. I was worried that my
tithe wouldn’t leave me with enough, but wasn’t I always worried about
that? For some reason, I allowed Satan
to influence me to use my tithe for myself.
BIG MISTAKE. I asked God for
forgiveness more times than I can count.
By the time I realized my mistake, I had nickel-and-dimed my tithe money
away. (Probably on McDonalds. It’s just
so conveniently close and cheap!) I
wallowed in guilt the entire month, and had completely convinced myself that I
had brought a “curse” upon my finances by not tithing that month. No matter how much I apologized and promised
God I would make it up, we barely, and I mean we BARELY made it through that
month.
Finally,
I literally ran to pay my tithe as soon as my next check came. Things started looking up, and I was so
grateful to be free from the suffering I had brought upon myself by not
tithing. During a quiet time, the Holy
Spirit spoke to me. He told me that God
had forgiven me for not tithing the minute that I asked for his forgiveness. God literally forgave me and forgot my
offense, but I chose not to accept his mercy by wallowing in guilt! *facepalm*
Okay,
that story may have been too long, but my point is this: GUILT IS OF THE
DEVIL!!! When we do wrong, which is
bound to happen because even the righteous fall seven times (Proverbs 24:16),
God forgets about it the minute that we ask for forgiveness! We allow the devil to convince us that we don’t
deserve to be happy and move on from our sins, so we live in guilt. God forgot about it! He has your blessing in a nice, big package
just waiting for you to receive it. Step
on the devil and walk in your blessing!
I
would like to close by saying it doesn’t matter how big your sin is. I have definitely done some things that are a
lot worse than watching Scandal, but
God forgave me. He forgave me of every. single.
one. Whatever you have done,
repent! After you have repented, never,
never, never feel shame or guilt for it again!
That, my friends, is true freedom!
Food
for thought:
1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Psalm 103:12
- He
has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.
Romans 8:1 - So
now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
Have
an issue/idea that you would like to see featured in a future blog? Email me at whitney.p.gordon@gmail.com! It’s confidential!
