and it is such an important lesson because it is the basis of the entire Christian faith. the forgiveness of God that Christ brought to the world that we may see eternity.
i've been struggling hard with it.. and i am still struggling with it. struggling to forgive others and struggling in my relationship with God as I grapple with my ugliest sins and His forgiveness. Last night, i read this in utmost for his highest:
"Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ. There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony at Calvary. We should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith, and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.
Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ. To forgive sin, while remaining a holy God, this price had to be paid. Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement. The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive— He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life. But the thing that awakens the deepest fountain of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven his sin. Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God."
i don't know if i can put my thoughts into words..
i recall many times in the past 5 years when i wondered to myself and to God if i was really a christian because i know that i don't really get the truth about Christ dying on the cross for us. i know it in my mind but yet i don't really know it. in fact, i barely know it. i can proclaim it with my lips but it has never been written on my heart.
these few months, i've been experiencing the biggest tussle ever with forgiveness. placing forgiveness for others aside..just between me and God.. sometimes i really feel the gap. like i can't cross it, and i can't reach out to be with Him. God is a holy God, and true to His nature, He will never allow anything unholy to be near Him. which is me. even though i pray and pray for His forgiveness, mercy, and loving kindness to cleanse and draw me to Him again, it kinda doesn't happen. especially in the last few days, the struggle was intense and i was just so confused, disheartened and a little scared. Does He not want me anymore? maybe He really hates me now. are there anything else that are not right and I haven't been thinkin about?
when i read what Oswald Chambers wrote (i rarely check out that devotion book), it hit me so clearly. this problem i've always had but never really dealt with was back in my face. and i have to do something about it. this thing about Jesus and the cross.
All my christian life, I don't know how i have walked 5 years with it and think that i have a relationship with God. Whenever i seek forgiveness, i have been bypassing the cross. God sacrificed his Son the way He did, Jesus died the way He did, so that today i have this privilege of having a personal relation with God. it would not be in anyway possible if Jesus had chosen not to die, if God had chosen not to give His Son. Oswald Chambers really hit the nail home. The basis of God's forgiveness that i always had in my mind was really just the basis of emotions. God's love and kindness. but it so isn't that!! I always, always skipped the Cross cos i didn't really understand it, and never had the patience to be gripped by the tragedy of the Cross of Christ.
Jesus is the only way. the only way in all sense of it. to get to God, we need Jesus. the blood of Jesus that cleanses and makes us right that we can fellowship with God. for the forgiveness of God, the first checkpoint is always the foot of the Cross where Jesus gave His life. i don't really know how to say it.
maybe everything that i've journeyed with God so far, in all its goodness, is not even near the experience of a real fellowship with the Father in Heaven. maybe this time, it will be it. maybe it will be a really long and tough season of learning, but God will allow me to learn His forgiveness in all its truth and power. to be overwhelmed by what it is, for it to be seared onto my heart forever.. that we may share a relationship the way God meant for it to be.
and when i finally receive the forgiveness of God for what it really means (it's so unimaginable i can't conceive it at all), i believe that He will empower me to bring the forgiveness of Christ to those whom i must learn to forgive. We love because He first loved us.
what is it like to be constrained by the love of God?
i'm feeling so many things about this that i don't know what i'm feeling!
2 comments:
when His truth is written on our hearts, they will always be ingrained, though sometimes dust may collect in the engraved parts, blurring out the reality of it, but God has His ways.
when we come to God, we put on Jesus, as like the mediating being tt reconciles us to God.God sees Jesus and the work He has done on the cross, not our sinful state. therefore He deems us as acceptable to Him, a holy God.
well said, because and only because of Jesus' blood on the cross, the love and grace tt flowed with deep anguish and pain can we come to God just as we are, forgiven and clean.
God never meant for our sins to entrap us in the cycle of guilt and shame, tt's what satan wants us to think and feel.He said He doesn't condemn us. so tt's where we have to apply truth to our reality, by not beating ourselves anymore because of our shortcomings but to simply receive and rest in His deep love that is everlasting(:
let's not let what Jesus did on the cross come to nothing by not accepting His forgiveness, grace and love.
we are a NEW CREATION in Him, the old has gone and the new has come!
(:
loves
Amen to that! :)
I always find comfort in Romans 8 whenever I feel the burden of guilt overwhelms me.
Romans 8
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,[a] who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
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