Anytime is a good time to Look unto Jesus, The Resurrected One

Can You Go Without?

This post was started on Resurrection Sunday April 2011

Will you go without? There are lots of things that we can do without: computers, chocolate, dishwashers, heated seats in our cars, satellite radio, television, bias news reporting, video games, facebook (& twitter), wars, family feuds, disease, nightmares (real & dreamt), resentments, unnecessary laws, misunderstandings, language barriers, etc. Some of those things we would rather not go without but we can definitely live well without them. However, there is one thing that lots of people cannot do without including myself. Other people seem to be just fine doing without it and still more people who suffer miserably without it, now and into eternity. What is this thing that I cannot do without? Forgiveness.

Christians around the world celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So what does that have to do with forgiveness? According to God and His Word, there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. Throughout the Old Testament we can see how the shedding of blood for forgiveness of sins was animals blood, the sacrifice and it was done annually. Jesus Christ offered Himself as the sacrifice and it was done, "once for all." Jesus from the Cross said, "It is finished," in another word, DONE. The blood of Christ still to this day is more than sufficient for the forgiveness of sins.

In Isaiah 53 it says, in verse 5:

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

pand with his stripes we are healed.

If Jesus had simply died and was buried PERIOD, then He simply would have been a martyr, a liar and a highly esteemed preacher of the 1st century. In Matthew, Jesus forgives the sins of the paralytic, the Pharisees know that only God has the authority to forgive sins and even prior to the shedding of His own blood, Jesus exercises His authority forgives the man's sins and heals the man's body.

The Resurrection sermon at BBC was from Hebrews 9 & 11.......

From Hebrews 9 "there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood"

Hebrews 11 "without faith it is impossible to please God"

Christianity is a bloody religion. We serve a holy God who cannot tolerate sin. He is altogether just and altogether loving. God is beyond our human understanding but I do understand that it is impossible to lead a sinless life. I believe that ONLY One has ever completed the sinless Life and that was the Lord Jesus Christ - perfect Righteousness. But Justice needed to be served. The LORD God sent His Son to make the forgiveness of sins possible by pouring out all His Wrath upon His Son Jesus Christ at the Cross. The Wrath that we deserved was indeed upon Him. It seems completely radical in putting my trust in the God who sacrificed His Own Son for me and that this Jesus went willingly. Even Jesus cried out in the Garden, Father if there is any other way but nevertheless not my will but yours.

Thou He slay me yet I will trust Him. By the power of the Holy Spirit, through the bloody sacrifice of the life of Jesus at the Cross and the perfect (incomprehensible) plan of the Father, FORGIVENESS OF SINS is provided. Though we mourn on Good Friday, we still call it good because it was on that day that all our sins were washed clean as the new driven snow in the blood of Jesus Christ. I have lived without the precious gift and it nearly drove me insane and to an early grave. The burden of guilt and sin are too much for me. Jesus lifted the burden first by forgiving all of my sins. When I am cognizant of this fact of ALL my sins have been forgiven, who am I to not forgive those that sin against me. It is an act of love as illustrated beautifully in Luke 7. The conclusion is "she who has been forgiven much, loves much."

Freed from everything

“Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,
“‘You are my Son,
today I have begotten you.’
And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption, he has spoken in this way,
“‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’
Therefore he says also in another psalm,
“‘You will not let your Holy One see corruption.’
For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses."

(Acts 13:26-39 ESV)

I have been alternating reading this section of Acts 13 and the 17th chapter of Acts each day as of late. Each chapter contains the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ. This line keep grabbing me "everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses."  Of course, you have to read it in context. We have to ask and answer the question: What is it that you are to believe in order to have this freedom? The first part of the answer seems obvious to me: the clause right before this one says: "that through this man (Jesus Christ) forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you" so we are forgiven of our sins. I can hear myself before I was a Christian saying, "So what?! Who cares? I am not interested in being a good girl and having no fun." There was no appeal to me. I was blind and I had no understanding of my need for forgiveness. Frankly, I didn't care. When the LORD opened my eyes and I saw that God was Holy and could not be in the presence of sin and that He loved me enough to pour out His wrath upon His Son Jesus who went to the cross willingly to die for my sins, that I might be forgiven and made righteous by His blood, then and only then did I see my need. The need goes far deeper and still more is being revealed as I seek Him. I believe that through "this man" i.e. Jesus Christ I have forgiveness of sins.
We can't just leave it at that.  The man, Jesus Christ died for my sins. If he was just any man, it would not have fulfilled God's requirement of a perfect sacrifice. Jesus lived a perfect life as a man and he is also God incarnate. Yes, I believe he is 100% man (100% God) who was raised bodily and did not see decay and is now at the right hand of the Father interceding for those who believe and trust in Him.  1st John 4 verse 2 states: "By this you know the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God" I believe that Jesus Christ is God and that he came into the world just as we do, being born of a woman, he grew into a man. He counted himself as one of our brothers and being made like us in every respect as it says in Hebrews 2. I believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh.
Thirdly, there is the fulfillment of the Law. That Jesus is who He says He is. The Law of Moses was followed by the Jews. We might call them "keepers of the Law." They also possessed the hope of the Coming Messiah and some had their own ideas about what He would be about and how He would conduct His business. Some Jews, obviously, had their eyes open by the Holy Spirit and some did not. One of the mysteries is how God Almighty, Infinite in Power and Providence used all to bring about His Plan of Salvation through Jesus Christ.
The Freedom
By keeping the law of Moses seemingly to perfection by great works we can not be free. Even our BEST works are considered stained by sin. We can't have it so that our good works outweigh our bad deeds. If we could, then Jesus Christ died in vain and God could not be holy.
Christians who believe if they go to church every Sunday, tithe 10% or more, do good to their neighbors, friends and enemies, serve in the ministry of the Church and the Word in other words love God and their neighbor in their own power are not free.
Christians who believe that they are saved by Grace Alone through Faith Alone and can do whatever they want to do in this life. They are a law unto themselves and they too are legalists. There is no freedom for the law makers either.
Who can have this freedom?!
Those who believe that Jesus paid it all. Those who believe Jesus did for them what they could never do for themselves. Those who believe it is Jesus who paid for all of their sins. Those who believe that Jesus is the God/man who came in the flesh, lived the life that they could never live, died the death that they deserved and rose bodily from the grave. Those who believe that Jesus conquered sin and death motivated by the great love with which He loved us and made us alive that we might have LIFE Eternal. Those who indeed believe that Jesus plus nothing indeed equals everything are the ones who have been set free from everything which the law had no power to do.

"Now the LORD is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."  2Corinthians 3:17

Do you know Him?

The Man who chose the way of the Cross

His Father's will over His Own.

A willingness to pay the price for sin

Body bloodied and soul in anguish

I can't even pretend to imagine

Today I read from the gospel according to Matthew

the Crucifixion

The penalty of my sin paid in full

Being washed in the blood of the Lamb

Remember, that not only did Jesus die for our sins, but He lived like no other

Perfectly, He walked with the Father

Fully God and Fully Man he was completely Obedient

The LORD Jesus lived the life that no other man

has ever lived

and died a death that only he could endure

so that we might live

Thank you Jesus that by your mercy you poured out your blood for the forgiveness of sins

The following post was written over a month ago. It is a case of me speaking the truth to myself and I hope it is helpful to someone out there who is reading.

Who are you?

Who am I?

To whom do you belong?

Light has broken through the darkness. The darkness of sin and death has been conquered by first One born from the dead, The Risen One! The One who gave me life and then renewed it by the power of the Holy Spirit is what brings me to the above questions which were raised by two younger bloggers that I follow. My initial thought is we are all becoming, constantly changing and growing.

To know and be known. This is what we are attempting to look at through our questions and observations. One of the things that shapes and molds us is how we relate to others and how others relate to others. First we relate to people and then we relate to God.

Some people worship their parents and never transfer that worship to God. As a parent, my shortcoming have kept me humble and my willingness to relate to my kids as a fellow human beings have hopefully made such a transfer easy and early enough. These dear ones who are now all young adults have felt the sting of my wrongful acts and I have been showered with grace, mercy and forgiveness from each of them. I am often stubborn, prideful and arrogant when I am wrong, looking to be justified and it isolates me from those that I love. So, if I want to be relatable, it is going to require humility and a willingness to admit that I am wrong and ask for forgiveness. You would think after so many years of practice that it would come easily, not always. Forgiveness is what restores a relationship and there is nothing quite like a clean slate in order to continue to build a good relationship.

When you forgive me and I forgive you, we bid one another to come up higher because we will fall again, we will need to be restored again. I am doing my best to learn from my mistakes. Some sins are however harder to overcome than others. Without the Love of Christ and His grace, I am a reckless troublemaker.

Simple truth
Sometimes the simple truth is worth revisiting even if it wasn't that long ago that I posted about forgiveness. In my last post I wrote about how Christians (those who are called ministers of reconciliation) when told that their brother or sister is sorry or even ask for forgiveness directly, respond with "it's OK" and I am not the only one who thinks that. Author Paul Tripp says in his book War of Words,

Scripture is clear that it makes no sense to rejoice in the amazing forgiveness we have received in Christ if we refuse to forgive others (see Matt. 18:21-35). Scripture is clear that committing myself to forgive means being willing to do it over and over again . . . .God's Word stresses that forgiveness should not be taken for granted, but that we must speak unmistakable words of forgiveness to one another. Our model of forgiveness is the Lord, who does not assume that we will understand that he has forgiven us. He declares it over and over again in his Word. Relational forgiveness always means speaking words of forgiveness to the offender.
It is not helpful to say, "That's okay," or "It's no problem" to a person who has been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and has come to seek forgiveness. The Lord already has convinced the person that what he did was not okay. He needs the gift of forgiveness from you to put his heart at rest. In this situation, we need to say, "I forgive you and I have already committed myself never to bring up this issue to myself, to you or to others." These words do two things: they block the work of the enemy and they promote the work of sanctification and reconciliation that the Holy Spirit has already begun.

So, I have been sitting with this another truth concerning forgiveness for almost 24 hours. It was humbling. I have to be willing to accept when a brother or sister refuses to forgive me or ignores my attempts at making things right. The proper response is for me to forgive but I can't say, I forgive you for not forgiving me. Instead, I need to pray and let it all go. If I have put myself out there, named my sin, asked for forgiveness, then there is not one thing I can do to make someone else forgive me. It is now between them and God. Mine is to be loving toward that individual and to be ready if at a later date they decide to forgive because I will get to rejoice in the freedom that they experience.
To know the truth and not feel compelled to go and let the other person know what I have discovered is also a freedom. To sit with the truth is comforting and convicting. To rejoice in the truth is loving. I am being shaped and molded by relationships and experiences in this life. The Word of God reveals and restates the truth about forgiveness over and over again. The Good News is Jesus shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins.
I no longer have a right to myself, I have been bought with a price and I can take anything from anyone because I belong to my Savior Jesus Christ and it is in Him that I find my refuge and my strength.
Thank you Lord.
CM

Forgiveness
So many of us need it. I know I do. As a very small child I learned what we called the Our Father ( Ah Fathah) and lots of people call it the Lord's Prayer, as indeed it is, the disciples asked and so he taught, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." It is a funny thing with Christians. When I say that I am sorry, I was wrong for opening my mouth and putting my foot in it. The response is often, "that's ok." Well, no, it is not ok. When I am saying I am truly sorry, I am asking for forgiveness. It leaves me to wonder, do these brothers and sisters in Christ forgive me or do they reserve the right to hold it against me?
Because I did not grow up learning about the exchange of confession of sin and a loving response through forgiveness, Dan and I set out to help our children in this area. When you do wrong to your brother or sister, you don't just say, "sorry" with a pouty face, instead you say, "I am sorry I hit you with my teddy bear." We had them name their sin and then the response was, "I forgive you." Once when the girls were very small, Grace told Katie that she had to forgive her or God wasn't going to forgive Katie for 2 weeks. We still laugh about that one.
So, it puzzles me. I fall short and find myself sinning against the ones I love and I make myself vulnerable, name my sin and apologize but the ones who are called ministers of reconciliation don't verbally forgive me and are content with a trite "that's ok." (IT IS NOT OK) It doesn't console me that my side of the street is clean. I decided that I needed to look up some scriptures concerning this issue,

Matthew 6
14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Mark 11

25And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."^[a]

Luke 6
37"Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

I don't want my beloved left in an unforgiven state any more than I want to be left there. Going over this post with one of my children, I realized that for someone to say, "I forgive you." is admitting that my sin hurt you and that is a vulnerable place to be. The thing is, that when someone is willing to complete this relational exchange by being that vulnerable it makes the friendship stronger and the love deeper.

This post is dedicated to my dear friend CK.

Seventy times Seven
As some of you know, we (the Mullaney Pilgrims) are involved with public speaking and debating. The ministry of Communicators for Christ (CFC) helps us to prepare our young people for these activities and for the past 2 weeks we have been challenged, stretched and equipped to become better communicators at the 10th CFC Masters conference.
We heard from polished instructors and teachers who communicate in a professional and gracious manner and the following story from the road reminds us that the tongue is one of the most difficult things in this world to tame. However, there is hope in winning the war of words.
It's the 11th hour on the road and someone needs to go to the bathroom. Oh yes, there have been quite a few stops before this one, but like I said, it's the ELEVENTH hour and we are close to home. On this particle part of the journey I am riding in my friend's van (without her ;-( and 8 young people, three of whom are mine. Truth be told I lost my temper and not really sure now if I apologized or not, I think I did but if I didn't, I ask those of you who were with me, will you forgive me?
Why am I highlighting one of "my moments," the ones that we all hope and pray that everyone will forgive and forget about? Well it has to do with love - not the selfish love of I will love you as long as you give me what I want but the deep and true love that the Lover of our souls calls us to extend to one another. This is the love that includes forgiveness. It wasn't enough for Jesus to just love us, He could have done that from above, however in Romans Paul says, "but God demonstrates his own love to us in this, that while we were still sinners He died for us" and the death, the shedding of his blood was for the forgiveness of sins.
I sinned and I am truly sorry. The Lord granted us traveling mercies and for that I am grateful. It was a van full of firstborns, 6 including myself and it is amazing that the clashes were few and far in between. As we continue to debrief from our trip these things come up and I desire to be washed in the blood of the lamb and know that God's graces and mercies far outweigh my blunders.
Riding 800 miles with 8 young people was an adventure and I would do it again in a heartbeat. We road without a stereo or DVD player - IMAGINE, just with one another and a number of cell phones. Everyone took care of one another and stuck together; no one was left behind at McDonald's or anywhere else for that matter. There was an issue with the number 7 but all in all it was a good ride home and I look forward to more journeys in the coming year.
PAX,
CM