I Swore to God

I don't know about you, but sometimes I sin.

When I realize my sin, I like to punch myself in the face over and over again. It's what we do.

Sometimes the devil grabs my hand and says, "Quit hitting yourself" while chuckling that manacle laugh. He can be such a prick!

The other day I sinned.

In a conversation, I swore to God to prove my truthfulness. The person believed me (or so I think) and I didn't think much more of it.

Until I started to brush my teeth and then conviction hit me when I looked into the mirror. I have braces, so it takes me a little bit longer than most to get all the chunks of food out. (Well most adults anyways, not middle schoolers.) So the guilt had time to fester.

I repented and asked for forgiveness. Without a doubt, I was forgiven.

But I couldn't let it go.

How could I have said, "I swear to God"? I even raised my right hand. Dang!

I know that Jesus said to let your yes be yes and your no be no. I've preached about it. Back in my legalistic days, I probably judged someone for saying it.

You might think that it's not a big deal, but this is Jesus 101 stuff. If I can't keep his easy teachings, how in the world can I follow the difficult ones?

To make matters worse it was Saturday night.

Don't you hate sinning on Saturday night? It's the worst night of the week to sin. That means you'll have to deal with it at church the next morning.

My family was visiting Biltmore Baptist Church in North Carolina.

It's an awesome church! At one point my wife leaned over and said, "Good choice!" It had the family approval which is huge because normally my wife feels out of place when visiting new churches.

Pastor Bruce Frank was preaching it. He was laying it down and people were picking it up.

If you haven't heard him preach, you need to (www.biltmorebaptist.org).

He taught me something about my favorite worship song that I never noticed before. That's kind of hard considering worship songs are typically easy to memorize by design.

The song is "Oh How He Loves."

It is a very moving song.

It has moved me to tears on several occasions. When I was a youth director, the guy who did music with the youth band surprised me by having the students learn it. Since that moment it became my all time favorite.

The song says, "I don't have time to maintain these regrets, when I think about the way that he loves us."

Once he said that, I could feel the guilt wash off of me.

If you like to punish yourself for your sins, then you need to hear those words.

When you stop to think about how much Jesus loves you, it's impossible to hold on to regret. It melts away.

When you think about how much Jesus loves you, it's impossible to let Satan smack you with your own hand.

There's no need in punishing yourself because Jesus loves you so much that he took our punishment on so we wouldn't have to.

Stop beating yourself up for your forgiven sins. After repenting, instead of letting them fester and take root, reflect on how much Jesus loves you and experience the healing power of forgiveness.

Question:
Are you a self-punisher when it comes to sin?