Unshackled Moments ~ September 25 ~ Benedict Arnold

Don't be a Benedict Arnold.

Do you understand what I just wrote? Most of us probably understand that if someone calls a person a Benedict Arnold that they are saying they have been or feel betrayed. They are calling the other person not an enemy but a traitor. It's basically the same as calling someone a Judas.

Judas was one of 12 special men called of Jesus. He spent three years at the feet of the Master. Arnold fought bravely for  years before and after his traitorous turn. Yet their names have become bywords, synonyms of treachery and hurt. In all the years that have past there has been no forgiveness or lessening of the damage to their reputations. In fact, in both cases, their failures are more well known than even in the time of their lives. People who know little about Christ or the Bible are well aware of the betrayal of Judas, and people who know little more about the Revolutionary War than that the United States won their independence know Benedict Arnold switched sides or at least that he betrayed the cause he swore to uphold.

Sometimes it may feel that way to those of us who have not walked a relatively faithful and clean walk. To those of us  who have played the prodigal and walked on the seedy side of unrighteousness our failure may feel like a permanent tattoo across our foreheads that can never be removed or covered. We try to turn the torment of the past into the testimony that helps others, but underneath is the pain and shame of the label...traitor, failure, screw up, sinner. It can bind as as surely as the sin that originally brought it on. The world never seems quick to forgive and forget, and the enemy wants to tie our past to every step we take into our future. A part of us often feels as though we deserve the limitations and shame as we surrender to the boundaries our mistakes place on us.

Let us remember though that whether the world sees it or recognizes it or accepts it, we have been forgiven. Jesus loves the broken, and His favorite thing to do is to put the pieces back together even better than before. David failed in so may ways. He committed adultery in such a way that it is possible that by today's standards it would be an abuse or power and considered sexual assault. Then he committed murder to cover it up. Yet he is remembered most as the writer of many of the Psalms and a man after God's own heart. Many examples exist of failures being turned by grace into something that God used. Let the grace of God set us free from the chains of limitation and shame because of prodigal foolishness. We stand clean before God, able by His power and grace to shine more brightly for Him than we ever shone in our rebellion against Him.