Worship
When We Hide the Truth, It Is a Faith Issue
Then a man suffering from a dreaded skin disease came to him, knelt down before him, and said, “Sir, if you want to, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him. “I do want to,” he answered. “Be clean!” At once the man was healed of his disease. (Matthew 8:2-3 TEV)
When we hide the truth, it is a faith issue, not a circumstance issue.
It requires faith to be truthful. It requires faith to come clean. It requires faith to be authentic and transparent in our relationships. It requires faith to stop pretending and to let others see who we really are and what we’re really about.
Praise God, we have Jesus!
Even if we sin, we need not live in fear, because he sits at the right hand of the Father as our Advocate. He understands our weaknesses; he was tempted in “every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us have confidence, then, and approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it” (Hebrews 4:14-16 TEV).
The point is: Jesus wants to cleanse us, not condemn us. Jesus came to do whatever was necessary to cleanse us of our sins so that we could come home to the Father. Again and again, we see Jesus in the New Testament willing to use his power to heal. We see him willing to use his authority to cleanse.
If Jesus showed compassion for people in need while he was here on Earth, why would he be any different today as he looks out for us from Heaven?
This devotional is based on my book, Costly Grace: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer’s ‘The Cost of Discipleship’.
We now have free small group study guides posted for each chapter from Costly Grace. The study guides are available at http://www.gracecreates.com/free-stuff/.
