Restore Point
1 Samuel 12:20 “You
have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord
with all your heart.
I wish we had a restore point. I wish somehow we could go back to just
before we said that mean thing, or did that spiteful, selfish or reckless deed, and restore our
performance and settings. I’m not
talking about time travel, because that’s much too complicated and the time/space
continuum is too easily disrupted. (I
know that from watching Star Trek.) When you perform a system restore, you
don’t lose your recent work. Somehow the
computer figures out the critical error and only makes an adjustment in that
area. I’d like to reset my spirit
without losing all my experiences and work, to the time just before I’d
sinned. I’d like to be clean, innocent,
unburdened, and unashamed.
Our instinct is to turn away from God when we know we’ve
sinned. Adam and Eve tried to hide
because of their guilt. Several years ago, during a visit with our eldest son and his family, my youngest granddaughter, not
yet three, came to me crying. She
lisped, “Sorry,” as she looked everywhere but at me. I took her little shoulders, turned
her to me and asked her why she was saying sorry. She cried out, “Broke...lamp!”
We all know how she felt.
When we’ve deliberately played with temptation and been carried away, out
of control, the last thing we want to do is talk to God about it. It’s easy to put off or forget time with the
Lord, when we know that confession must come first. We find excuses for not praying, or we let
our work consume us. Our performance and
settings do not function properly. In
other words, we turn away.
In chapter twelve of 1 Samuel, the old prophet is giving his farewell
speech. He leans quite heavily on the
Israelites and speaks convincingly of the enormity of their sin in requesting a
king. He reiterates how faithful God has
been from the time he brought them out of Egypt , through the conquest of the Promised
Land until now. They have taken their
eyes off God, and think a king will save them.
Samuel has them persuaded of their sin, and evidently their shame is evident - for he tells them, yes,
you’ve done all these evil things...but don’t turn away from God. Rather, jump in wholeheartedly and serve him
again. Even with a king, even with the
evidence of their sin in front of their eyes, he asked them to try again.
How can we do this?
Only because of mercy, and by grace.
Forgiveness is akin to a system restore. Here is the promise: If we confess ,
he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all
the wrongs. In other words, He takes the critical
error off our hard drive and wipes it clean.
And it isn’t even kept in his memory so he can bring it up later and remind
us. I think God knows that between us and
Satan there is enough memory to go around. My husband says it well - Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. But truly, our sin is remembered no more by the only one who has the right to
forgive it. With confession, System Restore becomes a reality and we emerge clean, innocent, unburdened and unashamed.
