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The Facts on Forgiveness

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

“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

Feeling Fine

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.  

Psalm 51:6, NIV 1984

I have a family member who’s quite fond of telling us she’s fine. It’s her standard answer when asked how she’s doing. In sickness, loss, or even celebration, her response to us remains the same. “I’m fine”—even if she’s not.

I saw a movie once that gave a clever acronym for FINE: freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

Yep. That sounds about right.

We have a terrible habit of projecting one thing when in reality we’re really something else. It seems harmless. We’re not trying to hurt anyone. We simply don’t want to be a bother. No one needs to know what’s really going on inside. After all, what can they do? And more importantly, what would they think?

So we pretend to be something that we’re not. We say we feel one way when we actually feel another. Or we don’t speak what we really think; instead we speak what we think we should.

We often spend a good bit of our lives under a banner of pretense. Unfortunately, we have no idea the danger that puts us in.

Beloved, deception lies at the heart of every one of Satan’s schemes. More than what he does, it’s who he is. It’s Satan’s nature to deceive.

He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

When you and I deceive, dear one—even inadvertently—we share the nature of the enemy of our souls.

Ouch. Every time we stand on pretense instead of truth, we align ourselves with the father of lies. And we become tools in his schemes.

Gideon found that out the hard way. Last week we saw God use Gideon to defeat the Midianite army. I wish I could say that was the end of his story. Unfortunately, he had a little trouble with pretense. No wonder God desires truth in our inner parts. When they don’t match what we present on the outside, we can do all sorts of damage. Let’s take a look at Gideon’s story.

After his amazing victory, Israel rallied around Gideon and made a request.

The Israelites said to Gideon, “Rule over us—you, your son and your grandson—because you have saved us from the hand of Midian.” Judges 8:22

Wait a minute. Who saved them from the hand of Midian? Let’s see how Gideon responded.

But Gideon told them, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.” (Verse 23)

Well done, Gideon! He gave what appeared to be a very humble answer, didn’t he? He knew exactly what he should say, and he said it. Israel had no king. God Himself ruled and led them. That’s what made Israel different from every other nation. Gideon knew good and well who had given them the victory—even if the people were a bit confused about it—and he wasn’t about to challenge Him for the throne.

So Gideon declared that God alone would rule. Unfortunately, his actions declared something else.

And he said, “I do have one request, that each of you give me an earring from your share of the plunder.” Judges 8:24

The people spread out a garment and happily tossed rings of gold into it for Gideon, a tribute normally reserved for kings.

The weight of the gold rings he asked for came to seventeen hundred shekels, not counting the ornaments, the pendants and the purple garments worn by the kings of Midian or the chains that were on their camels’ necks. (verse 26)

He may not have accepted the title of king, but he certainly lived like one. Verse 30 records,

He had seventy sons of his own, for he had many wives.

Scripture names only one of them in verse 31: Abimelech. You might be interested to know what the name means in the original Hebrew. Abimelech literally translates to, “My father is king.” [Strong’s, 40, p.1467]

I guess we can see what Gideon really believed in his “inner parts” (Psalm 51:6).

The inconsistency between what he said and what he held in his heart led him to twist God’s law to meet his own desires. He used some of the gold to make an ephod, a garment God had ordained for priests alone through which He would communicate direction to lead them. Judges 8:27 reveals,

Gideon made the gold into an ephod, which he placed in Ophrah, his town. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshiping it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.

Gideon declared with his mouth that he would not rule. Then he asked for tribute and led God’s people right into idolatry.

Do you see why it’s so important for us to allow God to bring truth to our inner parts, beloved? Without a renewed nature, every one of us—even mighty men used greatly by God—can become a snare to His people.

Jesus beckons you to authenticity, dear one. Will you allow Him to change you from the inside out? Only the light within us will dispel the darkness around us. Let’s abandon pretense and put an end to the enemy’s schemes.