A Matter of Forgiveness

If somebody were to ask me of my beliefs, I would likely respond that, through the blood of Christ, I have been cleansed of all my sins. However, when I come to think of it, I'm not sure if I actively live that belief all of the time.

The funny thing about becoming a Christian, and something which becomes a stumbling block for many new believers, is that we still continue to sin after we have put our faith in Christ. Even though we die to our old sinful nature (Romans 6) and have become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), we still choose to go against God's will for us on daily occasions. Before we came to know Christ personally, we sinned because it was our nature; now, we sin from personal choice. It often confounds me why I would go on sinning the way I do when I know all that Christ did for me and all of the benefits of living according to God's Word. Even worse, why do I continually commit the same sins over and over again -- sometimes repeating the same behavior every single day? In the past, this has discouraged me to the point of depression, and unless I really am a far greater wretch than the rest of you, I'm sure that many of you can share in similar experiences.

Once we're depressed, the devil has us right where he wants us. When I feel especially guilty about a sin, the least thing I want to do is spend time with God-- rather, I tend to hide from Him. "After all, why would God want to hear from me after the horrible thing I just did against Him?" And that brings me back to the beginning, denying the very foundation of my faith, that I am forgiven of all my sins. Thankfully, the Bible has quite a bit to say on this matter:

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding." (Ephesians 1:7-8)
The verse might as well say, "the forgiveness of all our sins", as we could never enter into everything that God promises us as Christians if we remained blemished by even one sin which Christ did not forgive. As a Christian, when I commit that "horrendous sin", I shouldn't remain in guilt about it, but have peace that Christ has already paid for it. We shouldn't see God as looking down scowling at us for our blunders. After all, God loved us enough to die for us when we were totally in sin and had done not a single righteous thing in His eyes, so it's foolish to think that we could do anything to decrease the amount of love God has for us now that we are saved and have been accepted into His family. God's love is a constant in our lives-- He'll never love you any more or any less than He does right now, and His love will never change past, present, or future.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
I should really look into it further before saying this, but a reliable source tells me that this verse speaks specifically to Christians. Even though the sins we have not yet committed are already forgiven, it is still important to continue to confess our sins when we become Christians so that we can remain in fellowship with God and the Holy Spirit. I think the preceding verses in 1 John 1 are referring to this.

"Then Peter came and said to Him, 'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?' Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.'" (Matthew 18:21-22)
This is for all of those who feel like God must despise them because they keep committing the same sin a dozen times each day. I'm not very good with math, but I think that 7 times 77 is about a billion. However, I could be wrong-- it might be larger. :-)
(Truthfully, the number "7" in the Bible often refers to "completeness" or "perfection" -- so you are perfectly forgiven.)

Even if you've missed everything up to this point, this part should bring everything together for you:

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:10-14)
I'm sure all of us, like Paul, want to grow closer to Christ in our relationship with Him. So what was Paul's secret in doing this? He let go of the past! Paul, like most of us, had a past which he wasn't especially proud of (Read the first half of Philippians 3 to get the gist of it). Paul could have gone around feeling guilty about all of the horrible things that he had done, but instead, he forgot about his past failures and pushed forward. Likewise, once we confess a sin, we need to rest in the fact that we're forgiven and move on. If we let our guilt consume us, we'll never be able to run the race which God has set before us. God isn't looking for perfect people to run the race; even Paul admitted that he hadn't attained to perfection. God is just looking for willing hearts who will rest in His everlasting promises for us.

--Written by Steven Wakeman (2/10/02)