DEAR SHAHIDA

One day Shahida wrote to me asking me about assurance of forgiveness. I wrote the following letter to her.

Dear Shahida,

You asked to know more about the assurance of God's forgiveness. Hopefully the following thoughts will be of help to you. Forgiveness is a very important topic. It is also very misunderstood. Forgiveness is not just a one-time act. It is an ongoing process. Neither is it a license to do whatever we want to do.

The word "forgive" means "to keep on giving and giving." When we begin to understand the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, we begin to understand the need for forgiveness. Without it we would all be doomed to separation from God for eternity. But God loves us very much. He also hates sin very much. The message of all true prophets of God was that blood covers sin. Yet the blood of animals does not equal the life and blood of a man. Because Jesus Christ was the only perfect man in all of human history, he and only he, could offer his own life as a sacrifice. This was something that he did for God on behalf of all mankind. That sacrifice is finished and God was satisfied with it. Now what is our part?

We must realize that our sin offends God, yet he loves us. We must trust in his unfailing love. We may ask ourselves, "How can that be? How can God love me when I continue to fail him after he's done so much for me. I have wrong thoughts. I have wrong actions. I feel very unholy." The only way that he could love us like this is to have our sin covered by a sacrifice. That sacrifice was Jesus Christ. Our part is that having become convinced that we are truly sinners, and that God is truly a Holy God, we take him at his word and trust him that he no longer holds our sin against us. This means any sin that we have done or may do. Now this may seem like a very foolish thing for God to do. Won't people say, "Oh great, I'm forgiven. I can do anything I want. It doesn't matter to God because he is always happy to forgive me."? Let's look at this for a moment. Does the person who says this really believe that God is concerned about holiness? Does he really see the seriousness of his own sin? The answer to these questions is, "No!" The person who says this has not come to God in the right attitude at all! The right attitude is to recognize the seriousness of sin and the holy standard that God requires. Without that we would never see a need to receive God's gift of forgiveness. Then one must take God at his word and believe that what Jesus Christ has done by offering his own life as a sacrifice is truly what's needed to make us right with God. We don't need to nervously try to remember all the sins that we have done and ask God to forgive them every day. Instead, we humbly and thankfully recognize what a great thing God has done for us because he loves us. This does not mean that we will not be willing to admit our sin to God. When we trust in God's love, we should be very willing to admit when we sin. In fact it is important to admit we've done wrong when we realize we've sinned.

The Holy Bible says, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." (Injil, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a) This is the love that God has for us. Can you believe that? It's really true! Believing this, brings peace to our lives and begins to change our own attitudes and actions. But we see that this love is costly. When we sin, God is patient. When we need to know how wrong sin is and the damage it does to others, he kindly shows us. He always has our best interests in mind, by continuing to protect us. He does not say, "Go away. You dishonored me. I don't want to see you again. You're no good. I forgave you, and this is how you thank me!? I never want to see you again!" No, with great pain in his heart he cares for us, being patient with us until we again realize now our actions have hurt him. When we realize how patient he has been, our hearts are filled with gratitude. Time after time he does this, bearing the shame of our deeds because we have been forgiven by him, and become a part of his family. We know he is willing to do this because Jesus Christ, himself, experienced a shameful death. The only reason he died a shameful death was because of your sin and mine. Yet because of his love for us he bore that shame gladly. The Holy Bible says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Injil, Hebrews 12:2) We can have confidence because he is alive today and is continuing to present our case before God.

Being forgiven means coming back to these truths day after day, rejoicing in a holy, loving God. When we realize what God has done for us, we realize that we are not better than the next person. We will want to treat them the way God does and tell them about God's love as well. This is what it means to be truly forgiven and know it with full assurance.

A follower of Christ

 To e-mail me click here: tandoor101@aol.com

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