It is a great blessing to ones again get this opportunity as a heartchurch member to enlighten this congregation about a topic which has eluded understanding to many of us. It is none other than what i promise to share with you from my previous series; Forgiveness. It is quite a difficult one to crack since we keep repeating our mistakes and asking God to forgive us over the same set of sins every time. Wont he ever get tired of us?
FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness refers to Absolution. When we fall for sin as believers, we don’t go back to ask for remission of sin or atonement, we ask good for forgiveness.
1 John 1:8, 9 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This text reveals how it is just human that we sin. We just have to acknoledge our true nature and ask for forgiveness.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
Before we can understand the full implications of sin by an individual, we have to define two important words;fellowship and relationship. Fellowship refers to friendly association, especially with people who share one's interests. Relationship also refers to the way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected. They seemed alike without the definition.
If one sins, there is a need to be washed in the blood of Jesus before one can have communication with God again. Sin does not break your relationship with God but it breaks our fellowship with Him.
1John 1:6-7 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
When Christians sin, we are still the son of God, so we ask for forgiveness. Our relationship as the children of God is not taken away from us.
Remember, the first sin in the bible. Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of Good and evil and after that instead of God to be so furious and disown them, he wanted them to learn from their mistake so he took leaves and even made cloths for them. God made cloths for Adam and Eve upon sin. They lost fellowship not relationship. God continued to see Adam as a son and made cloths for him. That's how God can forgive us even when we do exactly what he asked us not to do.
A husband and a wife, when they quarrel, it doesn’t break the marriage which is the relationship. They still live together. But what is broken is the fellowship. Communication does not flow as it use to until one party asks for forgiveness. As even humans, a wife can repeat the same mistakes and yet will be forgiven by the husband, how much more God?
The secret to staying in fellowship is by asking for forgiveness.
Luke 15:11 And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
This is the story of the prodigal son who took his inheritance left the father to squander everything. When all was lost he went back and the surprise party waiting for his return was in a grand style. The father of the prodigal son didnt want to loose him. I beleive he didnt want to talk to him when he took his share of his inheritance upon several advice. But then, your son is always your son. He returned and apologized and it was as though he never left. But note that, his inheritance was gone but he was in right standing with the father. The same thing keeps repeating each time we sin against God. We might do it over and over, but then remember, what we have lost is not replaced, we are just continuing in the grace.
Parishoners, today, let us ask for forgiveness from our sins. God is just to cleans us from all unrighteousness. That introduce us to our next topic; Righteousness. Its a vaguely understood concept and i want to enlighten us on it.
Note: Im sharing from a book called School of Victorious Living by Bishop Dag Heward-Mills. Stay blessed and have a wonderful day.
You can read on my previous article on Introduction to heartchurch- Atonement, Remission & Forgiveness
