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Most of us have faced an obstacle at some point in our journey of faith. In some cases, God may have removed the obstacle from your path or He may have given you grace to deal with it, but there’s one obstacle you can’t ignore or successfully work around for any length of time. The biggest obstacle stopping you from moving forward could be you.

Something as small as a long-held thought or belief about something can not only hinder your progress, but set you in a position of opposition against God Himself. When God has directed you to take a step of faith, held back your enemies for a moment in time and opened the door for you to simply walk through, you can still sabotage His plan by stubbornly refusing to change your mindset.

Receiving all that God has for you in the future requires you to let go of yesterday’s way of thinking. The promised land is a place where you must trust Him and simply obey His leading and direction, even when it goes against all that you’ve thought or said or done in the past. God never goes against His Word, but He challenges our mindsets and beliefs when they hinder our progress.

Don’t be afraid to invite God to show you where you need to change. Let Jesus come in and turn over a few tables in your temple. As you seek Him for direction, place your trust in Him and follow step by step, even when you don’t necessarily agree with Him, you’ll find the obstacle you were facing was all in your mind.

But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. Jeremiah 7:24

We see in the book of Jonah the example of a prophet called and commissioned to speak to a nation on God’s behalf. It is not likely that Jonah had a history of disobedience. On the contrary, for God to call him to so great a task, Jonah had to have proven some faithfulness to get to this point.

God knew what was in Jonah’s heart and He was well aware that Jonah would allow his emotions to rule, refusing to minister to people he considered undeserving of God’s grace and forgiveness.

Instead of dealing with the heart-matters that God was confronting him with, Jonah took an open door that conveniently led him far from the task at hand. Though Jonah thought he would finally have peace, he was soon met with trouble. But Jonah’s heart was so hard, he slept right through a raging storm sent by God to turn him around. We too can be found sleeping in our sins while God calls out to us to wake up and turn back to the Lord for times of refreshing.

Like Jonah, the stubborn, prideful and rebellious refuse are shaken out of their sleep, thrown overboard into the sea of reality, swallowed up by adverse circumstances and hand-delivered to the place God wants them to be. Yet the affliction that brought Jonah back to a place of obedience was marked with grace and mercy.

In the midst of the storm sent by God, will you be discovered sleeping or will you awaken to His call, humble yourself and submit to His will – body, mind, soul and strength?

When God told the prophet Hosea to take a wife for himself, it wasn’t one of the noble daughters of the land that God had set aside for him, but a wife whose past was marked by so many degrading sins that no one would ever want her. She was a harlot, yet God selected – even hand-chose her to be the prophet’s wife.

Her name was Gomer, which means “complete” but she was anything but that. She was a broken woman, used and abused, rejected and abandoned, despised and unwanted. But God saw her as a Bride, not a whore. He appointed her to be a wife, though He knew she would prove unfaithful.

Hosea’s name means “deliverance” and God used him to illustrate His grace and mercy for His Beloved Bride, the Church. Hosea married Gomer, delivering her from the brokenness of her past. His life became a sacrifice for her because he saw the bigger picture. He made her his wife. He loved her. He redeemed her from a life of sin and gave her his name. Who would do such a thing? It was such an outrageous act of grace and love that no one could understand or explain it.

In the church, God’s grace has been taught far too little, misunderstood far too often and sadly enough, received far too seldom. If we don’t understand the grace of God over our own lives, then how can we extend it to others? I met someone recently who earnestly believes he has not sinned since becoming a Christian. He is no different than the Pharisees who in their pride and self-righteousness, judged and condemned others instead of setting them free with the message of grace.

Gomer was the least deserving of all to have been chosen for a wife, but God hand-picked her as an illustration of His extravagant grace. He not only loved us and washed us clean from our sin – past, present and future, but He calls us to be examples of His extreme love, forgiveness, grace and mercy to broken souls.

As if all that Hosea had done for Gomer was not enough, she soon wandered from the safe haven he had given her. Feeling unworthy of such love, she had no understanding of her new identity. She found her way back to the sins of her past, a place that was familiar and comfortable, but would leave her deepest needs unmet. Yet God would not leave her there. He sent Hosea to redeem her once again. That was more grace than anyone could have expected.

God has seen the foolish mistakes of your past, yet He searches for you and brings you back to the safety and security of His love. He gave all He had to redeem you. And no matter how many times you wander, He will seek you diligently until He finds you because He loves you with an everlasting love that does not depend on where you’ve been or what you’ve done.

God sees you not for who you were, but for who you really are. Your identity is wrapped up in His love for you. Your worth is defined by the magnitude of His love. Who could not love a God who has evidence of your guilt, yet insists on your forgiveness? His grace frees you from your past, releases you from your failures and fast forwards you into your future with purpose and potential. You are assured of His blessing on your life because of His grace and unconditional love.

The truth is, no one deserves this kind of grace. Don’t let anyone judge or condemn you. Knowing and understanding God’s grace will change not only your life, but those around you. Let God use you to be a living example of His grace to someone today.

Many Christians believe that God can’t use them because of their sin. Somewhere they got the idea that God only uses perfect people to do His work. But the Bible is filled with people who made what many would consider fatal mistakes and were still used by God in powerful ways. And since there has only been one person in history who never sinned, that means that God is still using imperfect people today.

Most people would say that King David’s worst sin was his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband. Though these sins are not to be taken lightly, David paid a higher price for the sin of pride in 1 Chronicles 21.

Some people are under the delusion that they no longer sin since becoming Christians. 1 John 1 confronts that lie, saying, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” Putting our faith in Christ doesn’t mean that we stop sinning – it means that our sins past, present and future have been paid for in full.

In Jesus’ time, the Pharisees wanted everyone to believe that they exceeded the standards and requirements of the Law that realistically no one could live up to. When Jesus entered the scene, He offended their pride and self-righteousness by leveling the playing field, making a way for even the most vile sinner to come before God. The thief on the cross never lifted a finger for Jesus, yet His faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross justified him fully before the Father.

In Romans 7, the apostle Paul described with honesty and transparency his struggle with sin. He could have left us with the impression that he never sinned after seeing the light on the road to Damascus, but I thank God that he went on to boldly declare there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It takes humility to receive God’s grace and admit that our righteousness is as filthy rags.

Yet many believers harshly condemn themselves to the point where all they are doing is waiting for the Rapture with crossed fingers. Allowing sin to paralyze you is essentially saying that Christ’s work on the cross was not enough to cover your sin. Yes, you sinned in the past and chances are you will sin again in the future, but stop beating yourself up. The blood of Jesus Christ has covered all of your sins, past, present and future.

Everyone sins. No one is exempt. That is why your loving Father made provision for you through Christ. In Romans 8, Paul exhorts us saying, “…all things work together for good to them that love God…” Do you love God? Then be honest and transparent, allowing Him to use your imperfect life to help someone else out of the pit He brought you out of.

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.” Psalm 37:23-24

“‘I am so busy.’ We say this as a badge of honor, as if our exhaustion were a trophy and our ability to withstand seventy to eighty-hour workweeks a mark of real character. We convince ourselves that the busier we are, the more we are accomplishing and the more important we must be. But is this really so? Does more activity really mean more accomplishment? To be unavailable to friends and family, to miss the sunsets and the full moons, to blast through all our obligations without time for taking a deep breath – are these really the marks of a successful life?” ~ Dan Miller, No More Mondays

Instead of adding more to your To Do List, why not sit down and create a Not-To-Do List to eliminate the things that subtract your time but don’t add to your goals and productivity. Some things are obvious, but the challenge is saying no to good things so you can say yes to God’s best. At the end of the day, what if you managed to check off everything on your list but missed out on the things—and more importantly—the people that matter most?