1 Corinthians 13:5c “[Love] keeps no record of being wronged.” God looks at your heart. He's much more interested in the way that your soul is pointed than he is in what you have done or will do. Of course, our actions affect our hearts, but they aren't the root of it all; they're just symptoms of the conditions of our hearts.

When I say that God sees the heart, I mean that he looks past the superficial personalities and the phoniness in each person and knows exactly which way we are facing. He knows if we are pointed towards him, desiring and working towards a relationship with him, or if we're facing away from him.

Every day, we make tons of decisions. I know for me, many of them end up being anything from silly to just plain wrong, but God doesn't hold it against us. Instead, he works to bring us to a place where we choose to serve him instead of ourselves. In Matthew 6:24, it says, "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other." We cannot face away from God and say that we are still serving him. We must devote ourselves wholly to him in order to serve him.

Thank God for his grace! Even if we aren't always serving him, Jesus' sacrifice enabled us to be made holy before God. He is just and able to cover a multitude of bad decisions and sins and give us a clean slate. This scripture pretty much sums it up: Psalm 32:1 "Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!"

Everett