The God of Second Chances

We continued our Faith, Hope and Love series on Sunday, talking about Moses. We talked about how so often in our life we feel the tension of God calling us to trust Him in new ways, yet we only offer Him our conditional obedience. “Here I am….but” is often our response. One of the reasons why so many of us are quick to offer God conditional obedience is because of our failures. We feel as though we have failed God, we have failed someone, we have failed ourselves, and God can’t or won’t choose to use us again.

That is where I sat a little over two years ago. Trisha and I moved to Indianapolis in 2002 with a vision to help as many people as possible find their way back to God. We started Genesis with that heart, and God was blessing in so many ways. When I chose to have the affair, I failed so many people…God, my wife, my boys, the hundreds of people that were trusting me to be the spiritual leader of our church, pastors that had encouraged their people to leave their church to go with us to help us start our church. Failure after failure after failure, after failure. God was done with me, I was convinced of it!

I remember eight years ago sitting with Pete and talking about the kind of church in which we wanted to raise our kids. Trisha and Brandi and Pete and I would sit out on their back porch and talk about God using us to provide this kind of place. A short time later, Pete and Brandi started Cross Point, and Trisha and I moved to Indy to start Genesis Church. When I failed so badly and left Genesis, I was convinced that I wouldn’t have an opportunity again to be a part of a place that my kids would love and embrace and own the mission of like they did Genesis.

Last night, my son Elijah put this up as his Facebook status:

Elijah Davis: I know I think that so many things r changing but at crosspoint over 1,000 people accepted Christ I just think that my church is a place to renew your life and I love hearing or seeing that!

What I realized when I read that is that God has allowed our family to be a part of a church that my kids love and want to invite their friends to and that see what God is doing there! He has given me a second chance. That is true for you as well…no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how bad your failure, God is a God of second chances. Not only does he offer us second chances, but he pursues us when we are hiding from our failures and calls us out of hiding and into the mission that He has in mind for us.

Maybe you are hiding from God right now due to a mess up in your life. Maybe you find yourself thinking that because of what you did God will never use you again. Maybe you think the dream that God has given you for your life, your family, your future won’t come to pass now because you have failed and hurt so many people. As you and I are willing to come face to face with our failures, confess them, seek forgiveness and reconciliation for them, God then does what only He can do…use our failures to redeem our future. He is truly the God of second chances. Take heart in that today!