Messed Up

You messed up.

It might have been this morning. Yesterday. This last week. I don’t know what or when, but you messed up and you know it.

I did too. Repeatedly.

We can all identify with the Apostle Paul, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway” (Romans 7:19 NLT).

It’s also why Paul quoted from Psalm 14 & 53 in Romans 3, “No one is righteous — not even one” (Romans 3:10 NLT) and then observes, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 ESV).

So you are not alone. We’ve all messed up. And that’s not an excuse. Because God is good, He is also just, and His justice demands a penalty for sin.

But the beauty is found in the following verse after Paul proclaimed that we are all sinners in Romans 3:23. He followed up with, “…and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood — to be received by faith” (Romans 3:24-25).

You did mess up. And maybe today you are struggling with the guilt of that. That’s why Jesus came — to take away your guilt and absorb your condemnation. If you receive Jesus’ gift of forgiveness by believing/trusting in His death and resurrection, and surrendering your life to Him, He promises to unload you of all your guilt.

At the end of Paul’s whole treatise on why Jesus came, He proclaims to those who have received Jesus, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1 NLT).

I don’t know what you are feeling guilty about. But for me, there’s been a lifetime of going my own way and doing my own thing. I have sinned, and so have you. We are all guilty.

But I’m forgiven because of Jesus. And you, too, can unburden yourself of your guilt, even right now, by confessing your sin and trusting God to forgive you because of Jesus. Because as the above verse proclaims, if you belong to Jesus, there is no condemnation for you. If you are attached to Jesus, you are forgiven and redeemed.

Why not liberate yourself of that guilt today? “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved!” (Romans 10:13).