"You Messed Up"

You messed up. These are the first three words your internal judge speaks to you when you fail to meet a standard or make a mistake. These three words are on repeat on the devil’s playlist of oppression. The grim reality of these three words paralyzes us with guilt and shame. Guilt and shame act as brothers in arms and has an overpowering effect on our capacity to feel and accept God’s grace. We become immune from God’s grace the more we identify with our guilt and shame. So, the question is, how do we decrease the immunity from God’s grace? First, we must reduce our dependency on identifying our guilt and shame. In other words, we need to divorce ourselves from identifying with our failures and marry ourselves to God’s unmerited favor—grace. The process of receiving and metabolizing God’s grace does not nullify personal ownership of our misdeeds. Though grace is available, we need to take personal ownership of our actions. 

The second step in decreasing our immunity from God’s grace is to increase our dependency on what Scripture says we are. We can either allow the father of lies, Satan, to dictate who we are or allow the Father of Truth, God, to reveal our genuine character in Jesus Christ. Finally, we decrease our immunity from God’s grace by changing “you messed up” to “You are loved.” This is an act of God because only God can turn something bad into something good. Whatever mistake you have made, bring it to Christ with the full assurance that He will bring order from chaos. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). God’s grace welcomes all mistakes. Be honest with Jesus; He is humble and gentle. I am encouraged by God’s grace to bring all my mistakes to Him because He will not condemn but cleanse me from all unrighteousness. I pray that we may have the same grace towards each other, the same grace that Christ shows us.