Friday, April 14, 2017

Forgiveness



For such a long time, I have wrestled with the theology of forgiveness.  I understood a great many things about it.  I understood that a thing forgiven is no longer indebted.  I understood that payment for my sin was death, a price that Jesus paid physically so that I wouldn’t have to pay spiritually.  I understood that it only took the smallest amount of sin to send my life to hell.  I understood these in a broken, unconnected way.  It made sense to me cerebrally, but the greater truth, the emotional freedom, the absolute assuredness and hope of salvation was still outside my grasp.  Maybe no one is as thick as I was, but my heart was in jeopardy!

You see, although I gave my allegiance to the Lord at 9, I was still in the process of giving Him my heart.  I would still sin (big shocker, right?).  I was (and obviously am) still imperfect.  My sin was the only spiritual reality that I allowed myself to fully realize.  The salvation of Jesus Christ seemed to be held out before me as something that I dearly wanted, thought I had sometimes but, most of the time, it was something from which I felt alienated.  It took decades of struggle before God gifted me with a greater understanding of forgiveness.

This understanding is what later prompted the writing of my song, “My Sins Are Gone.”  The flaw in my understanding of forgiveness was more fundamental than anything.  I was constantly focused on the fact that sin separates us from God.  It’s true.  Sin is what drove Adam and Eve from the garden and caused them to have to stop physically walking with the Lord.  Isaiah told the Israelites in Isaiah 59:2, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”  As I continued to mess up, I felt the wedge grow between the Lord and me.  From time to time, I allowed myself to feel forgiveness…but it was a fleeting, emotional thing.

You see, there’s a huge difference between “feeling” forgiven and “being” forgiven.  Praise God we are forgiven even when we don’t feel like it!!!  What I never realized was that the separation from God only spelled out condemnation before Christ, not after Him.  Romans 8:1 tells us that there is “now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Even back in Isaiah 59, the chapter states that a Redeemer would eventually come and change everything.  Sin would no longer separate us.

The forgiveness of Jesus Christ that was purchased on the cross is for all time.  All sin of those who claim Jesus Christ as Lord and choose to wrestle against sin to minister reconciliation to the world is forgiven.  You see, whether your sin was committed the day before yesterday or will be the day after tomorrow, as of today, it is forgiven…as of the cross it was forgiven.  In fact, Jesus died for all sin.  That means His redemption rippled forward and backward through time.  For those who have given their allegiance, their hearts, their lives to God’s ownership, he forgets their sins.  He promises Israel by way of His prophet Jeremiah that through His coming Messiah, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)

So where does that leave us today?  Sin does certainly keep us from communicating and growing with the Lord.  When we choose to abandon the perpetual love of God in pursuit of a life devoted to sin, we cement that separation.  However, if we, in our Christian walk, struggle with our sin it’s not counted against us.  We are washed clean even in the midst of sin because we don’t belong to it.  Though God’s grace is not a license to continue to sin, it is the reason we who belong to Christ are allowed to walk guilt free.  We are forgiven.  We don’t gloat, but neither do we sulk.  This Easter, be free from anger, from depression, from self doubt and perpetual uncertainty.  Remember Hebrews 10:10, “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

In His Grip,
BJ

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