Tuesday, August 6, 2024
Blessed Forgiveness
As we have been learning, David was a man after God’s own heart, but he had his own set of troubles just like everyone else. Like so many of us, at this time David had pretty much run his life into the ground. He was guilty of adultery and murder. I imagine he saw what was coming. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been in the middle of something you knew was not right and you knew that it would all blow up one day? Sometimes sin has such a grip on us that without Divine intervention, we are never going to get away from it.
There comes a time when we can’t keep going in our sin anymore. There comes a time when God brings us face to face with the sin in our lives and face to face with the reality of that sin. We can live in sin and deny that we are sinning for a time, but that won’t work forever. God deals with us at some point, and David was at that point. Guilty. Ashamed. Alone. Realizing his sin and seeking God’s forgiveness. David must have felt a little hopeless, but David knew God offers hope in forgiveness.
Our hope is not found in our circumstances. So often our circumstances seem impossible and certainly make forgiveness feel impossible. But our hope is found in the empty grave because that empty grave is what makes forgiveness even possible. The empty grave is the promise of forgiveness – our forgiveness for our sins and the only hope of the possibility of being able to forgive others in our humanness. Because He has forgiven us, we can forgive others.
The need of forgiveness, or an awareness of sin and the damage it has done, leaves us crying out for freedom from guilt and shame. God's blessings are based in relationship with Him. Forgiveness is the doorway for that relationship. The gifts of forgiveness are being surrounded by lovingkindness, joy and gladness. God has dealt with our sin on the cross. The penalty is paid for those who will acknowledge their sin, express their guilt and claim God’s provision. See your sin as God sees it, and do with it what God wants done, and receive BLESSED FORGIVENESS.
Reconciliation with God
It is important to remember that Holy God does not need to reconciled to man, but man needs to be reconciled to God. God has not sinned against man but we are alienated from Him because of our sin. Even though God does not need a relationship with us, He has a desire for a relationship and seeks to reconcile with us.
The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. There must be a payment for our sins. At the cross we were forgiven by Christ and offered reconciliation. His shed blood on the cross paid the debt we owe for our sin and cleansed us to be whiter than snow.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
The debt for sin was paid, and if we accept the gift of salvation, we are reconciled with God instantly.
We do not “get right” with God, but receive the gift of being “made right” from Him.
It is a gift given to us from God. He is the gift-giver. Thus, He is the one who sets the terms for how to receive this free gift and then makes the offer to us.
Reconciliation is forming of a new relationship.
Like a Phoenix that rises from the ashes, our relationship can rise from the ashes of our past failures. The reconciled God justifies by grace the sinner who accepts the means of reconciliation. Those who surrender to Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit into their life are transformed into a new creation.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19
