There is nothing quite
like a quiet Saturday morning – sleeping in, having my favourite breakfast and
later just enjoying a mug coffee with my bible. Especially after a long week! I
begin by thanking Him for firstly knowing Him and being chosen to serve Him,
the great people or things He has given me, etc. I also ask Him for the Word He
has to speak to me – whether it is correction, instruction, edification, etc.
This morning He put a person on my heart that I have not completely forgiven
for the things she did. To me, I thought I had forgiven her cause I repented of
my sin of unforgiveness. But now, He wanted me to get in contact with her. When
the thought of writing to her gave me an uncomfortable feeling, I knew He was
right….I still had some issues. My thoughts were “what do I say?”, “how do I
say it?”, etc. I love the way the Lord brings things back into my mind when the
time is right. I know that to work through it, I need to be obedient to His
voice. That’s the hard part. But if I continue keeping my heart open to
correction and be willing to learn…..God, who has ‘brought me out of darkness
into His marvelous light’, causes me to claim the victory to bring about
forgiveness and reconciliation.
The Lord does not bring all my sins out at one go
and say “deal with all your sins now!” (thank God!). Before we accept Christ as
our Lord, we are under the ‘unrestrained power of our sin nature (our flesh)’. The
day we accepted Christ, He forgave us of our sins and we now have the power to
overcome sin through the blood of Jesus. It does not mean our sinful nature
vanished into thin air. It means that Jesus has given us the
grace and power not to be controlled by the love of sin or its ruling power
over our lives.
In Roman 6 we find that Paul says that we have died
to sin and therefore should no longer live in it. Many get confused with this.
A student asked me “Jesus died for my sins. So that means He forgave me for
sins and defeated sin. So that means I don’t have any sin now. He knows my sin,
so He has forgiven all my sins (past, present and future)”. She even quoted
Romans 6. Now being dead to sin means not being in control of its ruling power.
People, Jesus isn’t Santa Clause! He is in the business of saving souls not
giving us a loophole to continue in sin. We are born with sin nature and have a
continual choice everyday whether to yield ourselves to sin or to God. Sin
destroys what is good in our lives therefore we must not let it reign in our
lives. As a believer, I must still confess my sins. 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” That is
why it is said in Romans 6: 6 “…that
our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away
with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin”. It means that
when I accepted Christ, sin lost its grip on me and I can now overcome sin
through the blood of Jesus and His resurrection power. It does not mean that my
sin automatically no longer exists or is extinct but are dead to sins enslaving
power!
Reason I see unforgiveness as something that I
should never condone (even though I ‘know’ I am right!) is cause the Lord’s
prayer says “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. I’m
not saying be a push over but forgiving someone is not merely just for them but
more for our own soul. So here goes….do not be like the servant, in Matt 18,
that owed his master an unpayable debt and was forgiven his debt but could
forgive another who owed him significantly less. Jesus forgave us of ALL our sin and
saved us from the pit of hell yet we find it hard to forgive someone of a much
smaller debt. John Bevere put it this way….in Matt 18:12, Jesus says that we
must forgive 70 times 7 times a day! 490 times a day! Which means (excluding
sleep), we must forgive three times every minute. Now that just NUTS! That’s
why its only through the grace and power of Jesus that we can live. I do not
know any other way…..
Me
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