Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

 

Part 12 of 16 -

God’s Only Remedy for Sin is Faith In Christ’s Shed Blood

We many times Christians choose to live apart from the Lord within us. Even though we have had the sense of His life within to guide us we chose to ignore the sense we had of His saying, No! In that state, our conscience can become convicted by the Spirit within, prompting us to turn our heart back to the Lord. That re-turning is exactly what “repent” means. Sometimes we may hesitate to turn back to the Lord only because we feel so convicted that we feel condemned. The Lord will convict us of sin, but He will never condemn us. Romans 8:1 (NIV) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

We must turn our heart back to the Lord where we will have our conscience purged of conviction for the things we did in our separated state from Him. Here in Hebrews 9:14 Paul tells us that it’s by “the blood of Christ” that we may have our conscience purged. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead (separated) works to serve the living God?” In Hebrews 10:19 Paul instructs us saying, we can have boldness, with a full assurance of our relationship with God our Father, by the blood of Jesus. “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,”

Most times our sins are rooted in self-reliance, living independent from Him, in having our own way, trying to control our life and all that we may encounter in our life – this is my tendency when I live apart from Him, it is my besetting sin. It is my thorn in my flesh; it is the temptation of Sin operating from its base within my flesh body.

Most often I don’t need always to tell the Lord I’m sorry, that is unless He moves me to do so. What usually happens is I just recognize my sin, and then turn my heart back to Him. I let go of the issue at hand, and just keep walking by trusting Him. This is genuine repentance at work.

At other times I sense His conviction within, over something in particular that I’ve done. As I turn my heart back to the Lord, sometimes telling I am sorry, I then at once have sense of His unconditional acceptance, by which I can only melt in thanksgiving. I then know all is okay. Fellowship is restored.

You see, our sins separate us from God due to our own inward sense of guilt, not because God has turned away from us or left us. It is because we have tuned to our own way and not the way of the Lord. Isaiah 53:6a All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way… He says “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Heb 13:5). His desire is for us to return to our union with Him.

After we sin we sometimes note or sense that we have a dirtied or hurtful conscience. It is not a matter of sins being noted by God and held against us – God has long ago, at the cross, dealt with and forgiven all our sins, even before we sinned. It is an inward sense of conviction the Lord uses to turn our heart to Him. The Lord simply desires continual union with us. That’s His goal for us.

By these understandings, we can see that any such expression of sorrow, conviction, or guilt for sins is not needed to satisfy God’s concern for justice - He is fully satisfied by Christ’s blood alone. I trust that by now we clearly see that…to ask for God’s forgiveness of our sins could only mean we do not yet believe in the absolute sufficiency of Christ’s blood that was shed once for all time, for all sins. What God cares for is our heart’s return, and our restoration to union and fellowship with Him.

Thus we see that the Father’s desire is union with us and He has made “the way” in His Son, Jesus Christ.