Maybe this is you, you’re having a hard time being convinced of or enjoying your forgiveness because the reality is staring you in the face everyday in the form of consequences from the past. I have had to recognize that the past is always going to be present in my mind and memories but I must choose what to do with it. It can own me, or I can own it. I own it by understanding the reality of what Jesus did for me on the cross, That God’s love for me was not just communicated by His words but it was also demonstrated by His actions. His actions on my behalf on a cross through a death I deserved.
I often viewed myself in the past as the guy that God was going to have to sneak into to heaven lest others cry foul on my arrival. What I have come to know and believe is that I am not going to heaven based on what I have done or not done, I have come to know and understand that I am going to heaven because of what Christ has done for me! Those who would look down on me for my past have no more right to heaven than I, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23). My self- inflicted wounds that have now long scarred over were not what was keeping me from heaven, my sins, though many, were not too great for the blood of Christ to cover and what was keeping me from heaven is the same sin that keeps anyone else from there and that is, unbelief. I must insert something here and that is that true belief is always proven by confession of sin and repentance and I do not accept the “easy believism” that is often taught today. Yes, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved but all who truly believe will also confess their sins and repent. When I began to believe that my forgiveness was just as legitimate as anyone else’s and realized that heaven and hell will both be populated with sinners, I began to understand that to doubt my own forgiveness was to diminish the work and blood of Christ on the cross. I began to understand that if God forgave me, who am I to not walk in and enjoy that forgiveness? Does that mean I act as though my past never happened and remembering it is a sin? Not at all. I know there is a chance that some who are reading this have had life altering consequences for their forgiven sin, prison, divorce, broken family relationships, very painful consequences of sins God has completely forgiven. We must come to realize that while there are great and small sins, they are all sins.
“But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters.” – 1 Peter 4:15
Murderers, thieves and evildoers seems to be an understandable grouping, but why is the busybody thrown in with these other obviously terrible sins? The reason is simple, sin of any size disqualifies from heaven. Murder is a worse sin that gossip, but they are both sins, and the evildoer is worse than the busybody but, but both are sins and all sins require a blood covering and all sins are equally covered by the blood of Christ.
Excerpt from “Dancing With the Scars” now available on Amazon.
