When is the last time you really blew it?

I mean we’re talking major, big-time sin. On a scale of one-to-ten (1 to 10) it would have been a 15.5!  Did you repent right away?  Or did you walk around moping and crying and heaping hot coals of self-condemnation, blame and self-loathing on your head?

How long did it take you to come back to God and admit what you’d done?  How long to repent?  A few hours? A day?  A week?

Did you get a bit frightened, or concerned about what you thought God was going to think or do about your transgression?   Did you wonder how long it was going to take Him to forgive you?  Did you think God had to think about it?

Editor’s Note: When my wife gets super angry at me, it takes her hours, sometimes a whole day to talk to me about forgiveness and moving on. Just sayin’. Don’t tell her I told you.

How long do you think it takes God to begin His process of restoring the two of you to a right and intimate relationship?

Would you believe right away?  As soon as we sin, as soon as we realize we’ve broken intimacy with the Father, He begins restoring us to Himself.

Right after Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Right when Adam and Eve realized they were naked (that they had sinned) what’s the first thing God did after He spelled out the consequences for their sin?

 “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21

God’s reconciliation plan required blood sacrifice (their garments of skin) to wash away their sins.

The first man and wife could not escape their consequences. God spelled those out to them and kicked them out of the garden.

We can’t escape the consequences of our sins either. But  God revealed to me this week as I was studying another Scripture passage that His restoration process with us begins the moment we  realize, or are confronted with, our sin. Just like He did for Adam and Eve. And just like He’s done for all His children since that encounter with Adam and Eve in the garden.