Forgiveness

Meditate: Acts 2:38

Forgiveness means the debt is paid and a paid debt is no longer up for discussion.

It’s the same way with my sin debt.  My past is gone and in Jesus I’ve been given a new beginning.

That doesn’t mean I’ll never be reminded of my sin - I can pretty much count on it. But God has promised to “remember my sin no more” to separate my sin from me “as far as the east is from the west.”

That means that in God’s eyes my “case history” begins with the day my name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life; everything before that was washed away by the Blood of Jesus.

Now, I know that God keeps His promises, so who is it that keeps bringing up my past?

It may be my own sense of guilt or shame.  

It may be words of the people who knew me back when.  

It may even be the Enemy of my soul, Satan.  He’s real and one of his favorite tactics is try to cripple me under a load of guilt and fear that God doesn’t ask me to carry.  

One thing’s for sure - those accusations aren’t a gift from God.  God has forgotten my sin and taken away the load I carried and the stains I wore.

• Is there anything I’m carrying that no longer belongs to me?
• What guides me more - God’s forgiveness or accusations that no longer apply?
• How do I know I’m forgiven: I read it in the Bible; someone I trust taught me I was forgiven; I know it in my heart; or, all of the above.

Pray
Praise: You are my Light and my Salvation. You are Truth and there is nothing false in You. You always keep Your Word.

Confess: I am influenced more than I want to admit by baggage I carry from my forgiven past. I find it hard to listen to and trust You more than the other competing voices in my life.

Thank: Your forgiveness in no way depends on me.

Ask: Help me to focus on Your voice and turn away from anything else that would influence me. Make me sure of Your forgiveness.

Digging Deeper: Psalm 25

Blessing Declined?

Show of hands - who’s ever prayed that God wouldn’t grant you too much money or too big a house or too much influence?  That’s what I thought… 

But what about children? 

I run into folks all the time who claim that their one child is more than enough (and they don’t seem all that enthusiastic about the one!)  If you pay attention to our culture’s attitudes, children are either a marginally manageable blessing or a grudgingly acceptable curse burden.  Either way they’re definitely something to be avoided whenever possible.  So check this out from The Dawn Patrol:

In a jaw-droppingly blunt 1957 television interview conducted by Mike Wallace, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger shows that she was still the same woman who, in 1932, urged Congress to set up a Parliament of Population “to give certain dysgenic groups in our population their choice of segregation or sterilization.”

The interview is available online in its entirety, as is a transcript. Wallace does an admirable job confronting Sanger with her own pronouncements, including her having told his own researcher that ” it should be made illegal for any religious group to prohibit dissemination of birth control-even among its own members.”

Be sure to check it out.  The video’s not all that long and it’s fascinating on many levels. 

Now, here’s my point…  What does God say about children?  In Deuteronomy 28, they’re listed as one of God’s Promised Land blessings, a sign of His favor.  And of course, there’s this:

Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?
      the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
   Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows
      are the children of a vigorous youth.
   Oh, how blessed are you parents,
      with your quivers full of children!
   Your enemies don’t stand a chance against you;
      you’ll sweep them right off your doorstep.  (Psalm 127:3-5, The Message)

(Is it any accident that just as the value of children has dropped, so has our long-term security?) 

And, shouldn’t we be cautious when we find ourselves lining up with the folks who oppose God’s point of view?  (By the way, the culture war here isn’t about whether you have children yet - it’s about whether you want them and consider them a “from the Hand of God” blessing.)

Two cultural notes here: 
1) I found this via the folks at the GetReligion blog who pointed out how “we went from a culture where media personalities knew enough about religion to ask interesting and provocative questions of a theological nature to one where we avoid spiritual discussions at all costs.”
2) Can you imagine a contemporary news anchor endorsing anything with the same enthusiasm that Mike Wallace shows here, let alone cigarettes?

Forgiveness

Meditate: Acts 2:38

Forgiveness is part of God’s salvation gift.  It’s His response to all that Peter’s been talking about here:

Repent - admit that I need forgiveness. (Imagine someone standing before God saying, “Forgive what?”)

Repent - I purpose in my heart to turn away from my sin and my past. “Lord, change me! I am willing to change.”

Be baptized - publicly show that I share in Jesus’ sacrifice, death, and resurrection, and that I am joining myself to Him.

Also, remember “the wages of sin is death?”  Jesus paid my sin debt and forgiveness means I won’t be getting what I deserve.  I’m clean from my sin stains.  Yet another gift from God in all this.

• Are my sins forgiven?
• Usually there’s a response when someone gives me a gift. What’s been my response to God?
• What should it be?
• “I won’t be getting what I deserve.” How aware am I of that? How grateful am I?

Pray
Praise: You are the Provider God, even providing a way out of my sin. In You I have been given Freedom and Peace.

Confess: I sometimes forget how much I owe You and so my service to You is like one who owes You nothing. Forgive me.

Thank: My debt was so much more that I could have ever paid and, thanks to Jesus, my debt is forgiven.

Ask: Give me a grateful heart that I might testify to Your greatness in mercy, love, and forgiveness.

Digging Deeper: Psalm 130