Tag Archives: Forgiveness

Blood Bought

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Blood012_edited-2 copyRedemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians 1:7.

I have heard it and read it innumerable times, and, in the repetition, my mind becomes desensitized to the immeasurable anguish and unspeakable agony of Jesus. I have struggled for years to understand the brutality of His death. The attempts at depicting it on the screen fall pitiably short of the actual trauma and mutilation. His mom witnessed it and was, perhaps, close enough to be splattered with her son’s blood. It was nothing less than horrific. Why the bloody brutality? Why not a quicker less painful death?
The Old Testament altar was a bloody place. Perfect lambs were sacrificed to atone for sin – their blood poured out day after day. Sin is written into my DNA and struggles to the surface of my life on a daily basis. I was born bad, and, even on my best days, I still fall short. The price on my head: death. No plea bargains. No negotiating. Blood was the ransom demanded for my life because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.[1] But instead of sacrificing me, God sacrificed His Son shedding His blood to atone for my sin.[2]
The record of all my sins were laid on Christ and nailed to the cross. They were all washed white in the crimson flood and erased from the record forever. He does not condemn me now nor will He – not now, not ever.[3]
“…the Christian’s total debt has been paid by the death of Christ….The debt of our sins has been marked ‘Paid in Full!’….not only has the debt been fully paid, there is no possibility of going into debt again. Jesus paid the debt of all our sins: past, present and future. As Paul said in Colossians 2:13 ‘[God] forgave us all our sins.’ We don’t have to start all over again and try to keep the slate clean. There is no more slate.”[4]
So, how does that change today? What difference does it make right now? His death tore, from top to bottom, the thick veil separating me from God and exposed the sacred place of His Presence. He pealed back the covering of His heart and now calls me close. The Eternal Living God draws me into the hum of His power and the intimate pulse of His heart. He wants a personal relationship with me every moment of my day and has made the way.
Today, by His precious blood, I have entered the inmost sacred place of God – the very Holy of Holies – and sat in peace with the One who ransomed me and set me free from sin’s power and the strangling grip of guilt. I can talk intimately with Him and experience His power and Presence in my life day after day after glorious day. Hallelujah!
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[1] Hebrews 9:22
[2] Romans 3:25
[3] Romans 8:1-2
[4] Bridges, Jerry. (2008). Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love. Colorado Springs: NavPress.

How Far Can God Throw?

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Last week as I reflected on yet another birthday, I pondered God’s gifts to me. The first one He brought to the forefront of my mind was forgiveness. He led me to one of my favorite forgiveness promises – I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more (Jeremiah 31:34) – and He underscored the last phrase. It’s beyond my ability to comprehend, but His all-knowing mind chooses to delete my sins and never retrieve them….ever. God isn’t forgetful. The Ancient of Days hasn’t misplaced them. He purposefully and irretrievably removes my sin from His mind washing them away with His own blood.
From Jeremiah, He took me to other treasured places of forgiveness: Psalm 103:12; Isaiah 38:7; 43:25; and 44:22. He drew pictures of unreachable unsearchable distances, of blotted stains and vanishing mists. Then He took me to a new place in Micah 7, and I fell in love all over again.
This final chapter of Micah is set within the context of sin and guilt then culminates magnificently with forgiveness and love…
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives…? (verse 18)
Who is this God that fully pardons at no cost to me? All other gods roaming the planet and all those I place before Him are slave masters that imprison and condemn. There is no God like our God who placed all our sin on His Son and condemned and judged it once and for all.
You will again have compassion on us; You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea (verse 19).
I love the Hebrew word for compassion – racham. It’s a deep stirring of love and tender affection. When God looks at me, He is moved in His core with deep love even when I’m most unlovable and prickly. I can never exhaust His love, and His compassion for me never fails or falters – it’s brand new every morning. So, I drag myself out of bed and revel in the freshness of His racham.
Picture God walking on your sin with complete disregard then hurling the whole and totality of it into the depths of the sea. How far can God throw? To the bottomless depths of forgiven and forgotten and out of existence forever. And He will never dredge them up…so, why do we?
 

Absolutely Never

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Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.                     Romans 4:7, 8
Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ poured out His life and died to erase every single sin that I would ever commit in my short span of earth life. Then one day in 1960, He called me to Himself and my young faith wrapped around His forgiveness. He placed His seal of ownership on my soul and deposited His endless righteousness into my eternal account. I stood on little legs of faith before His throne just as if I lived His perfect life and never sinned at all—because Jesus was punished for my sins just as if He committed them all.
The record of my sin has been cleared and wiped clean with the cleansing agent of the blood of Christ. He does not keep a sin score or tally them and remind me, “Well, that’s the 873rd time today.” Nor is He disappointed when I stumble again and yet again. Instead, He sings over me with joy all day every day.
He has never left my side even when the days were dark and I lost sight of Him. I am fully persuaded that nothing today or tomorrow or anything I do or don’t do will ever separate me from Him.
On that day in 1960, all my sin was removed from the account of my soul and the Lord will never…not ever…will absolutely never count any of them against me. Not even those I will commit between today and my final day of breath. I am forever forgiven. And when I finally get to see Him face to face, He will sing me a song of welcome home.
Oh, what grace. What overwhelming and undoing grace! I am Yours…forever Yours.
The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him [Abraham] alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.                                                                             Romans 4:23-25