Posted on 07/26/2015 12:28:39 PM PDT by metmom
Right now you may be feeling guilty about one thing or another: what you said to your spouse last night, those unrelenting thoughts, something you did years ago and regret, actual lying and cheating. What do you do with this guilt? Do you try to ignore it? Bury it? Would you like to know how to handle it for good, how to find true and lasting forgiveness?
Let me give you an important principle for believers: Definition is a prerequisite to recovery. In other words, if you can define a problem, you can usually deal with it. Vague anxiety without definition of its source will simply wipe you out. It’s important to define the problem before you do anything else. Let’s define forgiveness based on Hebrews 10:1-18. Is true forgiveness even possible?
The Requirement for Forgiveness
To receive forgiveness, we must be sanctified, set apart to God. A lot of people try to make Christian principles work before they become Christians. When Jesus spoke to his disciples, one provision always followed upon the heels of his counsel: You must be a disciple of Jesus in order to reap the benefits of discipleship.
When Jesus said, “My peace I give to you,” “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you,” “Though he die, yet shall he live” or “I am with you always,” he was only talking to a certain kind of person. Those are not universal statements applicable to everyone; they are meant only for his everlasting family. So, a word of caution: Forgiveness is only for those who have gone to the only One who can forgive, Jesus Christ.
The Reality of Forgiveness
The forgiveness Christ offers is the real thing; it’s not a mere shadow or a copy. Let me illustrate what I mean. If I am really thirsty, one of the most arresting pictures I can see is a picture of a glass of cold water. The picture may be beautiful, it may make me think or daydream about a glass of water, but it is not a real glass of cold water. No matter how nice or realistic the picture, it is just that, a picture. In the same way, Christ’s forgiveness really makes you clean and free. You are forgiven. That is reality.
The Remedy Toward Forgiveness
Forgiveness doesn’t come cheap; it never has and it never will. If I punch you in the nose and you decide to forgive me, that forgiveness costs something—a hurting, damaged nose. There’s a sense in which all forgiveness is vicarious, substitutionary, one for another. Forgiveness always costs somebody something. In the case of the forgiveness offered by God, it cost him his Son. Christ took your place. His death means that you don’t have to die. Remember the cost.
The Reliability of Forgiveness
“But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12). Forgiveness is a fact because the One in authority, even Jesus Christ, says it is a fact. No data, no situation, no tragedy, no governmental decree, no military effort…nothing can ever change it.
There was once a doctor in a mining town who had many patients who simply couldn’t pay their bills. When they couldn’t pay, the doctor wrote “Canceled” beside their debts in his books. Years later, when the physician died, his widow tried to collect on those debts by taking the past debtors to court. But the court replied, “If your husband said that their debt is canceled, it is canceled and can never be claimed again.” Likewise, the King who rules has declared you “Forgiven.” No one can change that fact.
The Reach of Forgiveness
The reach of forgiveness is vast, “once for all” (verse 10). Jesus forgave every sin you have ever committed, every sin you are committing, and every sin you will ever commit. How about that? Corrie ten Boom described it, “Jesus takes your sin, past, present and future, dumps it in the ocean and puts up a sign that reads ‘No Fishing.’” That is so true. Christ has given forgiveness as far into the future as our lives will reach. And he has given forgiveness into the past as far back as our lives have been lived. We really are free.
I know what you’re thinking: Well, does that mean I can do anything I want and I’m already forgiven? Yes, that’s what it means. In that case, I’m going out right now to really sin, since it’s forgiven anyway. You may do that, but if you do, you haven’t understood the motivation of love. I don’t try to be obedient because he will zap me if I’m not. I try to be obedient because he loved me when I wasn’t. I’m constrained by his love, not by his judgment.
The Reminder of Forgiveness
In Hebrews 10:17 God says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
There was a bishop who was a confessor for a nun. One day the nun told him that Christ had revealed himself to her in person. The bishop, understandably doubtful about her vision, said to her, “I have some instructions for you. The next time Christ appears to you, I want you to ask him about the sins of the archbishop.” The nun said, “Of course.”
So the next time, in a period of confession, the bishop said to the nun, “Well, did you ask Christ about the sins of the archbishop?” She said, “Yes, I did.” He replied, “What did he say?” The nun answered, “He said, ‘I’ve forgotten.’”
The living sacrifice of Jesus Christ has not only wiped your slate clean…it has broken your slate into a million pieces across crossbeams. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). God has forgiven your sin on the cross. Christ’s death reminds us.
You may be on a guilt trip. I want you to think for a moment about the most horrible sin you have ever committed. Think about that which if I revealed it to your friends and family, would make you want to crawl into a hole in the ground. It may be a sin you’ve hidden for years, the one thing that nobody knows and about which you’re never going to tell anyone because you’re so ashamed.
Now hold it, in all of its blackness, before the light of Christ. Remember God’s Word in Hebrews 10. He says this to you: “You remember your forgiveness and I’ll forget your sin. You are free!” That’s real. That’s secure. That’s yours—forever.
Time to Draw Away
Read Psalm 103 & Ephesians 2:1-7
Although you know you’re forgiven in Christ, you may still feel guilty. During those times, you may need a reminder of the forgiveness that’s already yours in him. Write down and memorize Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Allow it to sink in deep…as deep as God’s love for you. You really are free of your sin—past, present and future. Nothing is held against you anymore. Not one single sin.
ping
Amen, mom
I carry myself in such a way that I almost never feel any guilt about anything; certainly nothing important. It’s not a claim of virtue, it’s simply that I don’t do what I don’t think is right.
IMO, guilt is the tool of the enemy to bludgeon the believer with.
The Holy Spirit convicts of sin and things that need to be made right. But He doesn’t put us on a guilt trip.
Keeping short accounts with God, disarms the enemy in that area. We can just say, *Forgiven. Get lost*.
When I was born from above in 1973, from that moment to now there is not one sin I have committed that has taken God by surprise, yet He birthed me way back then despite the sins He knew I would commit.
7“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN,
AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED.
8“BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.”
Romans 4: 1-8 NASB
Our sins are covered by the blood of Christ.
Amen and Amen
Could you put me on the Steve Brown list, Metmom?
I really love that guy! :-)
I can start one.
Thanks.
Nice article. I was particularly touched by the lines on the price of forgiveness. In a sense, the pain I feel in forgiving someone who hurt me is “borrowed” from the suffering of Jesus.
Someone quotes CS Lewis about forgiveness.
Something along the lines that everyone thinks forgiveness is a great idea until it’s their turn to forgive.
Funny how much we want it for ourselves and how reluctant we can be to give it.
Yes, it’s true ... but even more challenging than forgiving offenses is *forgetting*. You can be going along just fine, thinking you’re over it, and then something happens that makes it all fresh again.
Is that anything to add to this thread?
I see the posts of all the repeated Roman Catholic cultic posts each day (same as last year and the year before and the year before and the year before and the year before and the year before and the year before, ad infinitum), and one person be the sole responder to those same repeated threads. Yet, I see a complaint and question the authorship of a very succinct and applicable thread from a Christian spreading the Gospel (which means Good News, in case you did not know!).
The theme of this post has a broad reach, touching the lives of anybody hoping to see eternity with God.
These weak complaints and useless intrusions are wearing thin!
Yeah. WE can’t forget even is God somehow manages to.
However, when those old feeling come up again, we can just repeat it out loud and remind the enemy, who is likely the one dragging it up, that the issue is settled.
I like to say out loud that I forgive someone. I don’t believe the enemy can read our minds so I say it to be heard.
At the risk of getting into a theological debate, I think the verses about whatever you bind on earth, is bound in heaven, can be applied to forgiving others.
If I speak it out loud, I think that it can render it inaccessible for the enemy to use. IOW, it closes it off to him as an avenue with which to attack us again. If he tries by bringing it up again, we can then go back and point that out.
I have found that the things I have forgiven when I have spoken it out loud rarely are issues for me any more.
As a side note, I don’t usually do it in the presence of others unless it’s to the person who offended me. There are people from my past, who are long dead, who I realized I still needed to forgive so I have found that saying it in front of others for those situations, is not necessary. God hears and knows.
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