I Forgive You – Part 3
Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, “I repent,” forgive him [Luke 17:3-4].
We concluded yesterday’s study with the question, “But why did I deserve the death which Jesus died for me?” Answer: because I am a sinner, and the wages of sin is death. Do you see it? I came to Jesus as the Savior, confessed my sins to Him, and asked His forgiveness based on His finished work for me on the cross.
Don’t miss the part about recognizing my sins and the part about asking His forgiveness, dear friends. Until I am sorry for my sins and want to be forgiven, God Himself doesn’t—even more, He cannot—forgive me. Otherwise He would be complicit in my sins. He would receive me into heaven in my sins, making heaven to be unclean. By living in an unclean heaven God would be unclean.
What blasphemy this entire line of reasoning is! God cannot tolerate sin, period. He will not allow it in His presence, period. Sin must be removed and its penalty paid, before a sinner can relate to God. If God cannot forgive the unrepentant sinner, how dare any of His people believe themselves to have the power to do so.
No, dear friends, we mustn’t brew and stew over sins committed against us. Nor must we hold a grudge and feud with the sinner. We must always have the heart to forgive any sin done against us, and even long to do so while we pray for the sinner to repent. Even more, we must rebuke the sinner, thus bringing his sin to his attention so he knows he needs to repent.
Notwithstanding all this, we haven’t the power to forgive sins when the sinner isn’t repentant. God doesn’t do so and neither can we. If we are brash enough to think we can, our words make us complicit in the sin and we sinned against the sinner by confirming him in his sin.
Modern affluent middle-class morality teaches us to forgive everyone regardless. It gives sinful man the impression that he is a good person because, look! he forgives everyone! The focus here is on the forgiver, when it should be on the one to be forgiven.
Middle-class affluent morality is not Bible, dear friends. It is egocentric all the way down to its roots. The world is steeped in it, but that’s to be expected. What isn’t to be expected, in fact what is to be decried, is middle-class affluence permeating the Church. Such a scenario exposes Christians as being conformed to the world.
The Word of God warns of this and exhorts us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This comes from daily feeding on the Bible, from feeding on solid meat in the Bible rather than just sipping on baby milk.
If Christians are to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, then their leaders who are supposed to teach them the Word of God must first be transformed in the same manner. We need a return to the Bible on the part of the pastors and teachers in the churches. There is far too much involvement in church activities on their part, such that they aren’t able to devote considerable time daily to feeding on the Bible alone with Jesus.
If they don’t receive a fresh word from Jesus regularly, what are they feeding their flock? Answer: the stale words of men! They rush to a commentary and plagiarize a sermon. It sounds good to the unsuspecting flock and gets them by, so why not? And it does take scant time to do it that way, certainly much less time than waiting on the Lord Jesus daily.
Nay nay, dear friends! Rather, let us heed the words of Isaiah 8:20, “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Genesis: Volume 1 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
We concluded yesterday’s study with the question, “But why did I deserve the death which Jesus died for me?” Answer: because I am a sinner, and the wages of sin is death. Do you see it? I came to Jesus as the Savior, confessed my sins to Him, and asked His forgiveness based on His finished work for me on the cross.
Don’t miss the part about recognizing my sins and the part about asking His forgiveness, dear friends. Until I am sorry for my sins and want to be forgiven, God Himself doesn’t—even more, He cannot—forgive me. Otherwise He would be complicit in my sins. He would receive me into heaven in my sins, making heaven to be unclean. By living in an unclean heaven God would be unclean.
What blasphemy this entire line of reasoning is! God cannot tolerate sin, period. He will not allow it in His presence, period. Sin must be removed and its penalty paid, before a sinner can relate to God. If God cannot forgive the unrepentant sinner, how dare any of His people believe themselves to have the power to do so.
No, dear friends, we mustn’t brew and stew over sins committed against us. Nor must we hold a grudge and feud with the sinner. We must always have the heart to forgive any sin done against us, and even long to do so while we pray for the sinner to repent. Even more, we must rebuke the sinner, thus bringing his sin to his attention so he knows he needs to repent.
Notwithstanding all this, we haven’t the power to forgive sins when the sinner isn’t repentant. God doesn’t do so and neither can we. If we are brash enough to think we can, our words make us complicit in the sin and we sinned against the sinner by confirming him in his sin.
Modern affluent middle-class morality teaches us to forgive everyone regardless. It gives sinful man the impression that he is a good person because, look! he forgives everyone! The focus here is on the forgiver, when it should be on the one to be forgiven.
Middle-class affluent morality is not Bible, dear friends. It is egocentric all the way down to its roots. The world is steeped in it, but that’s to be expected. What isn’t to be expected, in fact what is to be decried, is middle-class affluence permeating the Church. Such a scenario exposes Christians as being conformed to the world.
The Word of God warns of this and exhorts us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This comes from daily feeding on the Bible, from feeding on solid meat in the Bible rather than just sipping on baby milk.
If Christians are to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, then their leaders who are supposed to teach them the Word of God must first be transformed in the same manner. We need a return to the Bible on the part of the pastors and teachers in the churches. There is far too much involvement in church activities on their part, such that they aren’t able to devote considerable time daily to feeding on the Bible alone with Jesus.
If they don’t receive a fresh word from Jesus regularly, what are they feeding their flock? Answer: the stale words of men! They rush to a commentary and plagiarize a sermon. It sounds good to the unsuspecting flock and gets them by, so why not? And it does take scant time to do it that way, certainly much less time than waiting on the Lord Jesus daily.
Nay nay, dear friends! Rather, let us heed the words of Isaiah 8:20, “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Genesis: Volume 1 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
No comments have been added yet.
