PRAISE & PRAYER PROMPT ••• Sometimes, we all feel like an outcast.
Sometimes, it’s all in our own imagination…
Sometimes, it’s a feeling we get after doing something we shouldn’t have…
And sometimes, we are legitimately in situations where right or wrong, we are excluded by the people around us.
Whatever the circumstances, feeling like an outcast isn’t a fun place to be.
I was reading this morning when I came across 2 Samuel 14:14b ESV, “But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast.”
These words were spoken to David by a woman who had been sent to him to convince him that he needed to bring his son, Absolom, out of exile.
Backstory here – Absolom had run off to another country a few years earlier after he murdered his brother, Amnon (who raped their sister, Tamar).
The woman’s words to David were profound, even out of the context of the story.
We are ALL outcasts.
When Adam and Eve fell to temptation and contaminated the whole human race with sin, we were all automatically outcast from a relationship with a Holy and perfect God.
But God, in His immeasurable love for us, had a plan.
A plan for redemption through His Son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16).
So though our sin condemns us to exile from God, when we accept the gift of salvation that Jesus offers, we are restored…
Brought back from our banishment…
Not because we’ve done anything to deserve it, but because our Redeemer lives and because He loves us (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Today, as you pray, thank God for His plan to restore us to fellowship with Him.
Thank Jesus for His willingness to be the perfect sacrifice so that we will never have to be an outcast again.
Ask the Holy Spirit to help you be a living testimony for other who need to be reminded that God has a plan; that you were once lost, but now you’re found (Luke 15:24)…
To show others that redemption and restoration are free for the taking for anyone who believes.
