God Still Loves you Even when you Sin...

This morning I woke up thinking about the same thing I thought about in my prayers before bed, and on my walk yesterday evening--all the forefathers (and mothers) of us that were essentially BFF's with God Himself, were sinners. Not only were they sinners, but I would say based on the Ten Commandments the sins were pretty heavy; especially for O.T. (Old Testament) times. Think about Adam and Eve! They knew God personally. They walked in the garden with God and He gave them just one rule. What did they do with that rule? Broke it, because of temptation. Can Eve really blame the devil though? She did it for the same reason the devil was sent to Hell; she wanted God's knowledge. Then she felt guilty about what she did and got Adam to join her. I also considered Noah--his family was the only one saved when God had him prepare an ark and then proceeded to destroy the Earth because of the sin and corruption. Noah was let out of the ark with his family and told by God that they alone would need to repopulate the Earth. What does Noah do? He gets so drunk he passes out naked and then his son Ham sees this and decides to tattle on his dad to his two brothers (which is also wrong), then the brothers cover him but tattle on their own brother to Noah when he wakes up. Noah likely felt ashamed for his actions and projected the blame onto Ham and cursed him! So what happened to treating others how you would want to be treated? What about honoring your parents? Not judging? These are things that should be inherently ingrained in our conscience. I would have thought those that had a direct speaking (face to face) relationship with God would really try to "behave", but over and over in the Bible we see them making huge mistakes, often with alcohol and women. Just think about what happened with Lot and his daughters right after God saved them from being killed during His destruction of Sodom and Gamora. Keep in mind they were all witness to the demise of Lot's wife when she even dared to look back toward the city. Moses did not follow instructions from God exactly as given, and questioned God's will a few times in a pretty hypocritic way. He told the people of Israel to trust God when they were thirsty, and then Moses went to complain to God about the same thing (while blaming the people following him). Then there was David, whom God also had a speaking relationship with. God would not allow David to build His temple because he had too much blood on his hands. Remember, David killed a man in a field before the many he killed during battles. I believe God referred to the former because it was murder. Solomon spoke with God as well and He was known to have at least a thousand lovers by the end of his life. So, as I thought about the main players (so to speak), the more important their role in human existence, the more grievous their sin seemed to be. Next time you give yourself a hard time for making a mistake, remember that God knows the mistakes we will make and He not only loves us still, but He counts on us making them. If we were all perfect already what need would we have to experience life on Earth. God designed Adam and Eve to sin so that we would all have similar experiences and be able to relate to His close acquaintances from the Bible. In His infinite knowledge, God knew that the devil would use guilt and shame to manipulate us; so, God created flawed people to carry His message. He made all of us flawed if simply for the joy we feel when we correct a mistake, ask for forgiveness, and see the lesson to be learned in order to not do the same thing again. Thank you Jesus for dying for our many sins, and thank you God for being so merciful as to sacrifice Your only Son for that purpose!

AMEN