What keeps you from seeking God?

Busyness?

Don’t really see the point? Maybe you wonder what difference it will really make.

Are you angry at Him? Do you feel like He disappointed you? Maybe you thought you’d done everything you knew to do, prayed faithfully, read your Bible, but God still didn’t come through the way you’d hoped.

Maybe it’s one of those things I’ve mentioned, but for some of you, I suspect it’s something else. Something that keeps you from wholeheartedly seeking God, enjoying His love and feeling like He will bless you.

For some of you, it’s guilt and shame that keeps you from Him. There’s something you’ve done that hangs over your relationship with God. Or it could be somethings, not just something. Maybe it’s something you’ve done over and over and over. You’ve confessed it to God. You’ve tried to stop. But you keep falling back into the same old patterns.

Let me just say, there’s NOTHING you’ve done, said or thought that will keep God from forgiving and loving you. If you have placed your faith in Christ, then He has removed your sin from you as far as the east is from the west. He gave you the righteousness of Christ. God no longer sees you as a guilty sinner deserving of punishment. He sees you as holy and blameless. Read Ephesians 1 if you don’t believe me.

Now you may think that it’s hypocritical to call yourself holy and blameless when you know you continue to sin. Look, I get that. Often my greatest problem is that I know my own heart. I know where I continue to blow it even after 29 years of knowing Christ.

But we need to remember–it’s God who calls us holy and blameless. And why does He see us that way? Not because of anything we did or didn’t do, but because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. If we continue to see ourselves as dirty, guilty, shameful sinners–what does that say about what Jesus did?

That it wasn’t enough? That maybe Jesus’ death on the cross was enough to forgive some people, but not me?

Can you see the pride in that? The arrogance? What are we saying, “My sin is so terrible that I must continue to feel some measure of shame and guilt, because Jesus couldn’t handle what I did?”

David committed adultery and murder.

Paul persecuted Christians before he himself came to Christ.

The disciples deserted Jesus when He needed them most.

Peter denied Him three times.

And let’s not forget the mother of Boaz. Remember Boaz? If you don’t, read the book of Ruth. He was a Jew who ended up marrying Ruth, a gentile, who had come back to Israel with Naomi from the land of Moab after the famine. It’s a great story.

Boaz and Ruth have a son named, Obed. Obed becomes the father of Jesse.

Still with me?

Jesse is the father of King David. And Jesus, God Himself, descends from the line of David.

But I started out talking about the mother of Boaz, remember? Well, the mother of Boaz is a woman named Rahab. Like Ruth, she was also not a Jew. Rahab was a gentile, but had also been a prostitute. Read her story here.

So Jesus is not only descended from the gentile Ruth, but also the gentile, Rahab, who was formerly a prostitute.

But if you read the genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1, you’ll see that Rahab isn’t identified as a prostitute. She’s Rahab. Who she was after helping the Israelite spies was more important than her past. Her past was in the past. It was forgiven. She moved on.

You need to move on, too.

If God isn’t counting your past against you, then why are you?

Whether you’re feeling guilt and shame for what you did five years ago or five days ago, the answer is the same–you need to walk in the truth, in the knowledge that Jesus took your sin, YOUR specific sin, on Himself when He was nailed to the cross. He took upon Himself YOUR guilt and YOUR shame, SO THAT you don’t have to carry it.

There is nothing that is separating you from the love of God. The barrier of sin has been done away with.

That means you can seek Him in the knowledge that you are guilt and shame free.