FORGIVEN, HALLELUJAH, FORGIVEN!
Forgiven, past, present, and future
By Steve Henry
Burke County
Romans 8:1
“There is, therefore, no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” If you are in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation ever, past, present, or future, there will always be conviction of sin but never condemnation of us.
Hebrews 10:14
“He has perfected forever them that are sanctified.”
2nd Corinthians 5:17
“If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.”
The word “creature” means “original formation.” The original formation of man was after the image of God, perfect, and remember from a previous study “you can’t get any more perfect than God.” Before the fall Adam did not need forgiveness and neither do we once we receive His Son as our Savior. God sees us in the absolute perfection in which He saw Adam before the fall.
You may be asking, “If God has already forgiven me of all my sins, then why should I have to confess them to Him?” We never have to ask or beg God to forgive us for any sin. Our part is confession or “agreeing with” God when He convicts (1st John 1:9).
From the moment we receive His Son as our Savior we stand in a perfect state before Him— forever. From God’s perspective, there is nothing to forgive, God dealt with our sinful “self” at Calvary, therefore I never have to worry about the old sinful Steve Henry, he was crucified with Christ, and he is dead (Romans 6:6), however from our perspective, if we want to walk in the freedom from sin He has already won for us we must learn “to agree with” Him.
When He convicts us of particular sins, don’t argue with Him, don’t try to rationalize them, just confess “Father, You are right, I confess this sin and turn away from it.” Confession is for our benefit, not God’s, and it allows us to realize the effect of the forgiveness that has already been appropriated for us through the sacrifice He made for us on that cross.
For example, I have upholstered for over fifty years now and I can still remember the first time I accidentally shot myself with a staple gun. Two half-inch prongs of steel entered the bone on my left thumb, a domain for which they were not designed, causing pain that was relieved only by removing the foreign object from my body. One of the Greek definitions of the word “forgive” is “to send away.” That’s what our wonderfully gracious Savior does for us when we sin against Him. He died for all our sins and now He stands ready to remove and send them away from us, keeping us free to walk in the freedom He has provided for us. Hallelujah, there is no end to His Marvelous, Matchless Grace.
When we sin we receive a foreign object into our “perfected” being. When we confess, our gracious Heavenly Father immediately springs into action (Luke 15:20), forgives or “sends it away” from us, and cleanses our mind from the guilt in which Satan attacks us (1st John 1:9). By confession we enter our Great Physicians’ ICU where we find His forgiveness to be Instantaneous, Complete, and Unconditional.
The staple gun incident is also a beautiful picture of the Body of Christ when we are hurting, and hurting quite possibly because of some self-inflicted wound caused by our own sin. When I look at this three-inch thumb I can see it is a very small part of this six foot three-inch frame of mine. When it was injured the rest of my body, in its entirety, sprang into action until I got some relief for it. My right hand grabbed a staple puller and removed the staple, these feet carried me to the first aid station to get some medicine for it, this tongue explained (confessed) what I had done, you get the picture, nothing else I was doing mattered until I got this one small part of my body fixed.
We need each other, we cannot be all God wants us to be without the help of our brothers and sisters in Christ, we can’t even “be filled” with His Spirit without submitting to one another (Ephesians 5:18-21). He has designed us that way, we are one Body. We are not a bunch of individual Christs running around doing our own thing for Him, we are the Body of Christ. If I’m hurting you should be hurting, but if I don’t share with you what I’m struggling with you can’t help me. I realize we can’t share everything in which we struggle with just anyone, but we all need someone in the Body that we can be brutally honest with, especially about the persistent sin that causes us so much pain.
Unfortunately many times we believe in amputation rather than healing. A brother or sister sins and we cut them off rather than trying to restore them (Galatians 6:1). It is my hope and prayer that we all find ourselves on the side of restoration.
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Steve Henry has been a lifelong resident of Burke County. God blessed him with an incredible lady that he has been married to for 43 years. He has also blessed Steve with two wonderful children and two beautiful granddaughters.
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