As Christians, our relationship with God should be the most important thing to us. And we can’t have a serious discussion about that relationship without addressing sin. Why? Simply because God is holy. The good news is that God forgives sins, and this forgiveness from sin sets us free.
I remember an event some twenty years ago involving a teenage girl who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Her pastor told her the Lord would never forgive her. Believing her pastor, she stopped attending church. Why would she continue coming, if she believed she was hopelessly lost?
I don’t know how, but a member of the local church that I was pastoring at that time convinced the young lady to visit our church. At the end of the worship service, this church member introduced the young and pregnant visitor to me. She shared with me what I just shared with you above. After hearing her story, I turned her to one verse in the Bible. It was 1 John 1:9, which says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (KJV).
I explained the verse to her. Hearing that she was not hopelessly lost, this young lady leaped for joy in my office, and began thanking God!
A main objective for my writing this blog is to proclaim the blessedness of God's forgiveness from sin in hopes of encouraging Christians who harbor unconfessed sins to experience the wonder of His forgiveness. This is not a call to perfection but a call to be real with God.
Since I have shared the above experience of mine as a pastor, you know that I am a preacher. Well, just in case there is anybody out there who thinks that in order to be a preacher you have to be perfect or you have to have been born a saint, let me tell you that is not true. I am not perfect, but I am committed to being real with God. And when I sin against God, I ask for His forgiveness.
When we harbor unconfessed sin in our life, it affects us physically, spiritually, and emotionally. That’s because at the time we become Christians, we become born again. That means we become new creations, and we take on the character of Christ. Sin after salvation has a totally different effect on us than it does before we meet Christ. Through the born again experience, we have become partakers of Christ’s divine nature. Sin grieves this new person that we have become on the inside. The bottom line is that once we have become born again, we can’t practice a life of sin and feel OK; we can’t live in sin and know true freedom; neither can we pray with confidence, when sin reigns in our life.
Notice, I am not doing a roll call on the types of sins we can struggle with. I don’t need to. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. We know what we need to confess to God and repent of. But let me close by saying this; when we live disobediently to God, we can come to church and worship Him as if everything’s OK, but we are not OK, and we won’t be OK until we confess our sins and experience God’s forgiveness. As the psalmist says, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1, NIV).
I remember an event some twenty years ago involving a teenage girl who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. Her pastor told her the Lord would never forgive her. Believing her pastor, she stopped attending church. Why would she continue coming, if she believed she was hopelessly lost?
I don’t know how, but a member of the local church that I was pastoring at that time convinced the young lady to visit our church. At the end of the worship service, this church member introduced the young and pregnant visitor to me. She shared with me what I just shared with you above. After hearing her story, I turned her to one verse in the Bible. It was 1 John 1:9, which says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (KJV).
I explained the verse to her. Hearing that she was not hopelessly lost, this young lady leaped for joy in my office, and began thanking God!
A main objective for my writing this blog is to proclaim the blessedness of God's forgiveness from sin in hopes of encouraging Christians who harbor unconfessed sins to experience the wonder of His forgiveness. This is not a call to perfection but a call to be real with God.
Since I have shared the above experience of mine as a pastor, you know that I am a preacher. Well, just in case there is anybody out there who thinks that in order to be a preacher you have to be perfect or you have to have been born a saint, let me tell you that is not true. I am not perfect, but I am committed to being real with God. And when I sin against God, I ask for His forgiveness.
When we harbor unconfessed sin in our life, it affects us physically, spiritually, and emotionally. That’s because at the time we become Christians, we become born again. That means we become new creations, and we take on the character of Christ. Sin after salvation has a totally different effect on us than it does before we meet Christ. Through the born again experience, we have become partakers of Christ’s divine nature. Sin grieves this new person that we have become on the inside. The bottom line is that once we have become born again, we can’t practice a life of sin and feel OK; we can’t live in sin and know true freedom; neither can we pray with confidence, when sin reigns in our life.
Notice, I am not doing a roll call on the types of sins we can struggle with. I don’t need to. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. We know what we need to confess to God and repent of. But let me close by saying this; when we live disobediently to God, we can come to church and worship Him as if everything’s OK, but we are not OK, and we won’t be OK until we confess our sins and experience God’s forgiveness. As the psalmist says, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1, NIV).
Copyright ©2010 by Frank King. All rights reserved.
1 comment:
Your doctrinal accuracy is refreshing. Keep on preaching The Word!
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