Forgiveness

I spent the evening with the man who helped break up my parent's marriage. We've known each other for several decades. It is a complex situation.

What I've seen in this life is the terrible reaping that occurs when God's forgiveness is not accepted. Many understand 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.' At least the older generation does. In our pride we refuse to accept God's forgiveness, or often it is just not understood that Jesus Christ paid the price for all of our sins. We must come to Him in faith, however, and put on the new man: a person forgiven and set free, who longs to live a life pleasing to God. 'If we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.' That is a powerful truth. It says nothing of baptism, religious ceremonies or how we treat others. It is coming to God with nothing to offer and knowing it is only Him who can fix the mess of our state. His Sovereignty, His grace, His love. We love Him because He first loved us. As humans the Bible says 'there is none righteous, there is none that do good (meaning according to God's standards of a pure heart), there is none that seek after God.' He draws us to Himself and we must respond.

We're reconciled because of what Christ did on the cross at Calvary. The evidence of that reconciliation is good works done through the life of a believer. It is not the other way around, but sadly too many people don't believe that. The result of flipping the order is that sin continues to eat away at us.  Good works done with the goal that we'll earn God's favor leave us still needy. They assuage our feelings of unworthiness superficially.

I can forgive the sins of the past. How many of us have not been sinned against or have not sinned against others? We think sinful thoughts and sin against God. We are born in sin, and then we choose to sin. Nothing we do can please God but simply accepting the way He has laid out for us to be reconciled to Him. Our own ideas or the ideas of some religion are not going to cut it, no matter how sincere. 

God left us His word so that we could KNOW how to please Him. Will you take the time to find out?

www.gty.org