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The Facts on Forgiveness

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Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Psalm 32:1

Last week we watched King David make some very poor choices. The man after God’s own heart distanced himself from God’s presence by neglecting his kingdom purpose. Then he took another man’s wife for himself and committed murder to cover it up.

David.

Beloved. Anointed. Warrior. King.

Thief. Adulterer. Murderer.

So many titles, such differing fruit. How can a man so favored by God fall so far?

When our focus shifts from our kingdom purpose to our own self-interest, we set ourselves up to fall. For a moment, David lost sight of whose he was and why he was here. God anointed him king to bring glory to His name. The moment David forgot that, sin took over.

Thank God for forgiveness. David himself penned the words of our opening scripture. If anyone understood the value of forgiveness, David did. But what does forgiveness really offer you and me?

We have a tendency to believe that the forgiveness Jesus poured out through the cross exempts us from experiencing any negative results.

Beloved, forgiveness doesn’t mean you won’t suffer consequences for poor choices. God’s forgiveness enables life to emerge in spite of them.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean you won’t suffer consequences for poor choices. It enables life to emerge in spite of them. Click To Tweet

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Galatians 6:7-8

Every choice driven by our flesh plants a corrupted seed.

The truth is, dear one, even when we’ve been forgiven, our choice to sin will leave its mark. Once sin has been sown, it always reaps a harvest. And it always devours and destroys.

But here’s the good news, beloved. Through forgiveness, God provides the power to overcome what sin has sown.

Take a look at God’s response when David finally acknowledged and confessed his sin.

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” 2 Samuel 12:13

I wonder how David felt when he heard those words. The Lord has put away your sin.

Our God of grace took the sin that had separated David from Him and put it away, out of His sight and His thoughts. It no longer stood between them. Forgiveness removed it, allowing David to draw near to God again, restoring their relationship.

That restoration brought David another blessing: You shall not die.

You see, beloved. When we receive God’s forgiveness and unite with Him again, the choices we’ve made may still hurt us, but they can’t kill us. In Him, we overcome.

The price of sin hasn’t changed, dear one.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

God covers the payment sin owes through forgiveness. Instead of death, forgiveness offers life. It restores our relationship with God and provides the strength we need to overcome the pain we’ve sown.

No wonder David cried out to the Lord,

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! Psalm 51:1-2

God did exactly as David requested. He forgave his sin and restored his relationship with Him. But David still suffered terrible consequences. What’s more, so did his children.

Take a look at what happened to David as a result of his sin.

  • “Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house”. 2 Samuel 12:10
  • “I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’” 2 Samuel 12:11-12
  • “The child who is born to you shall die.” 2 Samuel 12:14

Do you see the principles of God’s Word at work, dear one? David brought the very things he did to hurt others into his own life. He reaped his actions upon himself. War and rivalry rose up in David’s household, his own son seeking to kill him and take his throne.

Yet through forgiveness, God remained with David and provided the strength for him to overcome it all. David’s path wasn’t easy, but God was with him, so he overcame.

But that wasn’t all God did for David. After the death of the son conceived in sin, God brought new life from David’s ashes.

Then David comforted his wife, Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her, and she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon. And the Lord loved him and sent a message by Nathan the prophet. So he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord. 2 Samuel 12:24-25

Jedediah means beloved of the LORD.

Oh how I love God’s heart! God didn’t need to send Nathan to David again, but He did. And this time he brought a single message. “I love this child.”

God offered David the assurance of His love. The past lay behind, a future of blessings ahead.

Blessings lay ahead of you too, dear one. But you will only realize them when you stay close to Jesus.

Without Him, every time we make choices driven by our flesh, we will reap pain. But with Him we find the power to escape the death sin brings.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve sown, beloved. God loves you and longs to restore you, just like He did for David. Simply repent, receive the forgiveness poured out through the cross, and draw near to the God of grace through His Son.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 1:24-25

Don’t miss it, dear one. Jesus is able to keep you from stumbling.

Choose life, beloved. Your Savior died so you could really live.

Encountering Jesus

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“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3

On Sunday we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection. A throng of people filled our sanctuary, many dressed in pristine Easter finery. Ushers scurried to find seats, busily lining folding chairs along the walls and aisles to accommodate the overflow. It was no ordinary Sunday.

How it must have delighted God’s heart to see the crowds uniting in praise of His Son. Voices rose together in worship, a beautiful melody lifting before the throne of the King. I felt my heart swell with love and gratitude in response to what my Savior chose to suffer for me. My hands rose heavenward involuntarily.

It was a good day.

Today, sadness pricks at the edges of my heart.

You see, I wonder how many of the faithful Easter attendees flooding our churches really know the Savior they came to worship. How many went out of duty for a distant God they hoped to appease by their annual presence on resurrection day? How many others rifle into church each week from that same sense of duty, with no thought of encountering the Living God?

Please hear my heart, dear one. I don’t say this in judgment. I say it because for 26 years I was one of them. I say it because I know the emptiness of being a church attendee who had no fellowship with Jesus. I say it because I want desperately for everyone to experience the transforming power of His unfailing love.

Beloved, do you know Him?

I remember the day I finally met Him.

I wasn’t looking for it when it happened. I was simply trying to finish my homework and get my blanks filled in before our home group met the next time for Bible study.

But my relentless, loving God had plans for this lost and wandering sheep. Four words stared back at me from the page in my workbook, seeking my response: Do you love Jesus?

The question was an easy one, and I lifted my hand to answer “yes” without even thinking. I knew the right answer.

But my hand began to tremble as a fresh revelation dawned. Conviction fell over me as the Spirit of Truth invaded my thoughts and allowed me to see what He saw.

I didn’t love Him.

I had thought I did. I’m sure I’d said it a hundred times in my twenty-six years. After all, I’d grown up in church. And I wasn’t just an Easter worshiper; I worshiped every week. I could quote Scripture and tell you all about Jesus’ life.

But knowing stuff about Jesus isn’t the same as knowing Him.

And that day, the Spirit lifted the veil so I could see the truth about myself. I realized I had been a pretender, living a lie. I couldn’t love Jesus because I didn’t even know Him. But I realized something else that day that was even more important: I wanted to. And so, undone by the Holy Spirit in my living room, I confessed my sin, exited the kingdom of darkness, and gave my life to Jesus.

I have never been the same.

Have you had your encounter with Jesus, dear one? Does your Christianity bear the marks of religious chains, or a transforming work of grace?

If you’re not certain, ask the Lord of Glory to reveal Himself to you. He will never withhold Himself from a seeking heart. In fact, He’s the One stirring you to seek Him. And when you do, He promises,

“I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.” Jeremiah 29:14

He will lift the veil for you to see, piercing darkness with glory and disclosing your truth. And then, you have a choice to make. Will you step into the light and head toward Jesus? Or do you prefer the comfortable familiarity of the darkness?

Choose life, beloved. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and you will never see heaven without Him (John 14:6). To spend eternity with Him there, you must know and trust Him here.

He beckons you to life with the same invitation He gave the Twelve, “Follow Me.”

Will you follow?

 “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3

Lifting the Veil

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“When he [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” John 16:8

We have no idea how very desperately we need a Savior. And that, dear one, is precisely why He came.

One of my friends used to have a saying, “I just want to be in the happy place.” It was her way of expressing, “I’d rather not deal with this right now.” When difficulty would come, it was easier to just pretend everything was fine and get on with being happy. At times the illusion seemed far more inviting than her reality.

All of us can relate on some level. We often want to run from uncomfortable truths, and many of us do. But don’t we at least deserve the right to choose?

The enemy of our souls doesn’t think so. And because of that, the vast majority of people spend their lives embracing an illusion instead of facing the reality of their dire circumstance. Unfortunately for them, they don’t know any better. They’ve been deceived.

Have you ever wondered at Jesus’ teaching in John 6:44?

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Scripture states that we are unable to come to Jesus unless the Father has drawn us to Him. This means we can only find Jesus and attain salvation in response to the invitation of God. We will not simply stumble upon the truth or decide we need redemption. God must pursue us, reveal truth to us, and then empower us to receive it. Consider Jesus’ words from John 6:65,

“ . . . no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.”

Why would God need to enable us to come to Jesus?

The answer is found in 2 Corinthians 4:4. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

People are incapable of seeing the truth of the Gospel on their own. They won’t seek salvation because they can’t understand that they need it. No wonder Jesus could cry out on the cross on behalf of His accusers, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). They couldn’t know. Their minds were held captive by the deceiver. Praise God that Jesus bled and died to set captives free!

We cannot free ourselves from the deception, and we can’t free anyone else. We’ll never talk someone into faith in Jesus without a work of grace produced in his or her heart by the Spirit of Truth. He alone enables us to see and understand. He alone has the power to lift the veil on the enemy’s deceptions, and one of His primary tasks is convincing us of our “guilt in regard to sin” (John 16:8).

I remember the day He convinced me. I had grown up in church my whole life. As a child, I had followed someone through the sinner’s prayer and asked Jesus to be my Savior. It seemed the logical thing to do because everyone else around me had done it. And I certainly didn’t want to go to hell if it existed.

So for years, I went through the motions of going to church and trying to be a good person. Then I had my first son and something began to tug incessantly at my heart. I reasoned that I should probably try to become “more spiritual” for his sake, so I joined a Bible study and set about doing my lessons.

I wasn’t looking for it when it happened. I was simply trying to finish my homework so no one would see the blanks in my book when we met the next time. But God had plans for this lost and wandering sheep. Four words stared back at me from the page seeking response: Do you love Jesus?

The question should’ve been easy to answer, and I tried to. But my hand began to tremble as a fresh revelation dawned on me. The Spirit of Truth invaded my thoughts and allowed me to see what He saw. I didn’t love Him.

I had thought I did. I’m sure I’d said it a hundred times in my twenty-six years, because I knew it was the right answer. But this time, the Spirit lifted the veil so I could see the truth about myself, and I realized I had been a pretender, living a lie. I couldn’t love Jesus because I didn’t even know Him. But I realized something else that day that was even more important: I wanted to. And so, undone by the Holy Spirit in my living room, I confessed my sin, exited the kingdom of darkness and gave my life to Jesus. I have never been the same.

Have you had your encounter with the Holy Spirit, dear one? Does your Christianity bear the marks of religious chains, or a transforming work of grace?

If you’re not certain, ask the Lord of Glory to reveal Himself to you. He will never withhold Himself from a seeking heart. In fact, He’s the One stirring you to seek Him. And when you do, He promises,

“I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.” Jeremiah 29:14

He will lift the veil for you to see, piercing darkness with glory and disclosing your truth. And then, you have a choice to make. Will you step into the light and head toward Jesus? Or will you prefer to remain in the darkness (John 3:19-20)?

Through His work on the cross and the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has restored your right to choose, but ultimately the decision rests with you. Choose life, beloved, and experience the promise of 2 Corinthians 3:17:

“ . . . where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom .”