Good morning. Rats…nuts…crud…Uh oh…shoot!…oooh nooooo! Do any of those sound familiar? It has long been said that to err is human. It is hard to argue the point, because every person we’ve ever known, most certainly ourselves, make mistakes on a regular basis.
Here is a question for you to ponder: Did Adam and Eve make mistakes in the garden of Eden before they fell in sin? We don’t really have much information to go on since the book of Genesis really only tells us about their daily tasks of giving everything a name and looking after the garden they were a part of. But I wonder if Adam ever said something like, “and we’ll name that thing a neckulander”, only to hear Eve say “No, no, that’s too long and complicated. We’ll call it a giraffe.”
If Adam and Eve made mistakes, I am pretty sure they were the simple, unimportant kind. In reading the few verses that tell us about their perfect lives before they succumbed to sin it seems clear that they never suffered shame, or embarrassment, or regret, or significant loss from any of their choices until they failed and listened to Satan’s voice.
Once sin came into the world it seems that the cost of mistakes went way up. Cain murders Able, sin sweeps through the hearts of all the children of man, and in time there is none left righteous, none without shame. This grieved the heart of God And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Genesis 6:6. Am I suggesting that God made a mistake? No, God created perfection, but the destructive power of sin and the damage it brought to the people He loved broke His heart.
What can we do when our mistakes are not the small, insignificant kind but can be described as terrible, shameful, and destructive? There is only one place to go, one place to hide, one place to seek answers—within the shelter of God’s gracious love. Even when our mistakes are of the whopper variety it isn’t the end of the world, because God’s love never is diminished. His love is always powerful and present: For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.Romans 8:38-39 Nothing, no power or force of nature or man, no scheme and no mistake will ever separate us from the love of God.
When we talk about sin, we need to be aware of the nature of those failures. Are all sins mistakes? Yes, I would certainly say that statement is true. However, there are sins that are momentary lapses, mistakes of the moment, mistakes that are like stumbling and taking a sudden fall. Then there are sins that are mistakes in the greater sense of consequence, but when they are committed, they are not accidental at all. These are sins that are premeditated, a course of action that is a rebellion against God and is intentional. These sins represent our will going against the will of God.
The mistakes that we know to be sin all require repentance. They all require that we confess them, grieve for them, in humility give them to Jesus, and in thankfulness accept God’s forgiveness that is graciously extended to us because Jesus paid the price to ensure our forgiveness. In the case of the second category of sin, those that are purposeful and intentional, these actions that could have led to forgiveness are rejected by the sinner, and the security of God’s loving embrace is denied. It isn’t that God’s loving arms are not extended, it is that the sinner refuses to accept the need for them and is unwilling to take the necessary steps to make the needed changes.
In Psalm 31 David is in trouble. He needs God to come to the rescue, and that is his prayer.
In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
in your righteousness deliver me!
Incline your ear to me;
rescue me speedily!
Be a rock of refuge for me,
a strong fortress to save me! Psalm 31:1-2
I make mistakes on a regular basis, and I imagine that you do as well. Most of these mistakes are things like being forgetful or saying too much or too little. Sometimes these mistakes are well intentioned and often they really don’t do much harm other than momentarily wounded pride. But sometimes our mistakes cross the line. Sometimes they take us into the area of prideful negligence, to places that can only be called sin.
Praise be to God that His love is greater than our foolishness! Praise be to Jesus that His sacrifice is sufficient to cancel out our sin and cause such complete forgiveness that they are remembered no more!
Will today be mistake free? I doubt it. Will today be secured by the love of God? Absolutely!
Vern