A Walk To Love

David David’s story gave me so much hope. David, a man after Gods own heart (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22) found himself in a dark place, he had committed adulatory with a close friends wife and then murdered his friend to cover up his sins. To be seen as righteous he then married his murdered friends wife. Being humbled at the end of all of this, he repented and found forgiveness. As a pastors daughter I was very rebellious to my parents. At 12 years old I was always in trouble. On one such occasion I found myself in my room waiting for my dad to deliver the terms of my grounding sentence when he asked me a very simple yet profound question “Baylee, do you think you really know Jesus personally?” “No.” I replied bluntly. Knowing the answer emphatically. “Do you want to?” He asked so gently. “Yes.” I said with earnest. And in that moment the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. Later in the day my mom got a call from my friends mom saying that her daughter had ratted me out for sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night (something we had done many times together). When my mom asked me if this was true, I did what I had done so many other times before I lied. But this time was different. I instantly got sick to my stomach. I had convictions I had never had before. Such a sweet tangible sign of the inward change God had just done in my life. I had to come clean. Fast forward 7 years, I’m 19. I find myself in a terrible, emotionally abusive and extremely unhealthy relationship, with a man 11 years older than me. I’m broken beyond what I believe I can bear, I’m ready to die. I believe that I’ve blown it too bad to be forgiven by my family let alone God. After all I’m a Christian and yet I’m living in sin, how could Jesus ever forgive me? How could I ever turn around and face Him? David. Called a man after Gods heart. Did incredible things through the power of God earlier in his life, found himself in major sin. Repented and was forgiven, restored in right relationship with the Lord. We are NEVER too far gone! I have experienced the power of the forgiveness and restoration of the Lord personally! He is the healer of ALL broken things!! NEVER let Satan lie to you! You can turn around in any mess! He is happy to have you back in His arms!! Escape the city! Last night I went down a rabbit trail of thoughts. There was once a time I was living a very hypocritical life, saying one thing but living and doing something else… When I started thinking about all the people who knew my life of blatant sin and also knew what I was saying, the truth of the gospel I know to be true; I felt guilty for the witness I had ruined. I had added to those peoples excuses for why they don’t need to be a Christian. After all I knew the truth but clearly living contrary to it. Reading the story of Lot this morning, I think he was in a similar comprising situation. When the angels come into the city he instantly acts as a child who doesn’t want his parents to see the mess he made in the other room. He says “turn into my house, don’t go into the city.” He knew he was living in an immoral place. There is more to the story that shows us the major evil he had come to accept as normal in his life. But I’m not going to get into that right now, (I encourage you to read it in Genesis 19). When the angels tell him to get out of the city, It says he goes to the house of his sons-in-laws and they don’t believe him. “Get out of here for destruction is coming.” “How would you know? You think you know the truth? You think you talk to angels? You must be joking, You live the same way as us.” This is similar to how the world will react to us if we allow ourselves to get comfortable in sin. We all sin, but we cannot get comfortable in it, we must be quick to recognize sin and repent. Sin will always push us away from the Lord and make His voice hard to hear. We must be quick to return to Him. It goes on to say the angels tell Lot to “get out quick because destruction is coming.” And it says that he lingered, he had friends there, a livelihood, fun, he was comfortable there. If we love this life we’ll lose it (John 12:25). is there a place in your life that you need to flee? Somewhere you need to escape? It’s imperative that you run, don’t look back! When I was thinking, last night, about living in that life of compromise, I could not be more thankful for God rescuing me from it. Later in Hebrews 11 Lot is called Righteous. Let that encourage us! Lot is called righteous because He [simply] believed. God can still use our life and our story even after we’ve messed up. But we must first “escape the city”.