"As God for Christ's sake has forgiven you."
I am learning more about the grace and peace which I have received through Christ Jesus.
I am not just forgiven for my sins.
I am forgiven for all my sins: past, present, future.
I am forgiven because Jesus Christ paid the debt for my sins -- all of them.
I am forgiven all my sins, and I am not required to pay for the restitution of my sins.
The latest part, which I wrote above, is crucial.
In the United States, and especially because of evil cults like AA, we are taught that we have to make amends for our sins, or else we will drink again, or engage in other perversions.
Yet the Bible is clear -- we forgive, we are gracious, we extend grace to others because God has extended His grace to us.
About this grace, I have learned that this grace keeps on flowing toward us:
"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5: 17)
The Youngs translation brings out the active, ongoing, relentlessly loving aspect of this verse for us:
"for if by the offence of the one the death did reign through the one, much more those, who the abundance of the grace and of the free gift of the righteousness are receiving, in life shall reign through the one -- Jesus Christ."
Receiving: keep believing, keep receiving, keep on keeping taking more of His grace into the life which God has so richly blessed you with!
"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:" (2 Corinthians 9: 8)
A better translation takes away the sense of possibility, restoring the full activity of the verse: "God is causing all grace to abound toward you."
If you are under law, trying to earn God's grace, then it is no longer grace, but merit. We brought nothing into this world, so we should not assume that we bring anything now in this life which He has blessed us with, and with which He continues to bless us.
The ongoing gift of God's love is manifested to us not just in forgiving us of all our sins, but fulfilling the law, so that the claims of the Old Covenant have been fulfilled forever:
"13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2 13-15)
Not just all our trespasses, mind you, but also the taking away of the ordinances that were against us, and contrary to us -- they are now taken way because of what Jesus did for us at the Cross.
The law, which is the very weapon which Satan uses against God's people, has been fulfilled in Christ, and thus rendered inoperative as a tool of condemnation against us.
If the fulfillment of the law in Christ is still not enough, then here is something more regarding the full grace which we are receiving from God because of His Son Jesus:
"4Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." (Romans 7: 4-7)
We have died with Christ, and now we live because of Him. We walk in the newness of the Spirit because the Spirit of God lives and dwells in us.
All sins forgiven, and the law is fulfilled, no longer something which I try to live up to. I am also dead to the law, since the law is for dead people, or rather to show men that they are dead in trespasses needing a Savior. Once we accept this truth, then we have no longer to fear condemnation or death or reproach, because we are no longer under law, but under grace.
Galatians put it bluntly regarding the purpose of the law:
"23But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians 3: 23-25)
The law was primarily intended for the Israelites, a provisional covenant which came in along the side (Romans 5: 20), but with the fullness of time, with Jesus our Lord and Savior brought into this world dying for our sins, raised for our justification, we no longer have to struggle beneath the "Thou shalt nots", because we have His laws of faith, love, life, and liberty written in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit:
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10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)
And to affirm the end of the Old Covenant, the writer of Hebrew adds:
"In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Hebrews 8: 13)
If we do not believe that the Old Covenant is finished, however, then we will continue to live our lives trying to measure up to the impossible standards of the law, which will end up bringing out sin (Romans 5: 20; 1 Corinthians 15: 56-57)
As long as I believed that the law needed to be kept, then I was always looking to my past, and noticing that I did certain things.
The law brings out sin, and even if God does not remember my sins any more, the knowledge of the law will bring back to remembrance the very sins which I have committed.
When my understanding of how great and loving God is came through, then I was in a better position to challenge the fearful recriminations about yesterday. I no longer dreaded someone or something taking away my peace. I no longer tried to fix my feelings so that I would not feel bad, feel guilty, afraid or condemned.
Yet even when I reckoned myself dead to sin, there was still this idea that the law, the moral Ten Commandments, were still in effect.
We cannot understand the love of the Father if we believe that there is a standard still in place out to get us. We cannot rest and trust that He is taking care of all things for us if we insist on the old system of rules as our standard today for living.
Not the law, but His grace teaches us to say no to sin and yes to righteousness:
"11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, 12Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; 13Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus 2: 11-14)
We cannot understand the grace of God as long as we believe that something, any good thing still dwells in our flesh, that we can or must keep God's rules or earn His love, life, and favor in our lives.
If I think that I can and must earn His love, then so does everyone else whom I encounter. I cannot be gracious to others, and so if someone harms me, or if I feel that I have to protect myself in some fashion, then I will live a life of thinking that I have to punch and punish everyone who harms me.
I find specifically that since there are these rules which I was supposed to live by, and that I was struggling on my own for so much, if it had not been for this person or that person, or what was said or not said, then I would have not been it the mess that I ended up in, or I would not have absorbed the consequence of this or that. . .
But when I accept that everything is gift, all is grace, then there is no reason whatsoever to hold a grudge. None whatsoever. There is no more law demanding to be upheld in my flesh, and it no longer applies to anyone else either, now that I am walking in His Spirit, not my flesh, not my efforts, not myself
I struggled to forgive because I still that the law was in place for me, and thus for everyone else. I did not see the Lord God as taking care of all things in my life, that I was dead to the law and the rudiments of the world, and therefore I did not even have to fear fear and resentment, either.
Hallelujah for all that Jesus has accomplished as is still accomplishing in me:
"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:" (Philippians 1: 6)
If I think that I can and must earn His love, then so does everyone else whom I encounter. I cannot be gracious to others, and so if someone harms me, or if I feel that I have to protect myself in some fashion, then I will live a life of thinking that I have to punch and punish everyone who harms me.
I find specifically that since there are these rules which I was supposed to live by, and that I was struggling on my own for so much, if it had not been for this person or that person, or what was said or not said, then I would have not been it the mess that I ended up in, or I would not have absorbed the consequence of this or that. . .
But when I accept that everything is gift, all is grace, then there is no reason whatsoever to hold a grudge. None whatsoever. There is no more law demanding to be upheld in my flesh, and it no longer applies to anyone else either, now that I am walking in His Spirit, not my flesh, not my efforts, not myself
I struggled to forgive because I still that the law was in place for me, and thus for everyone else. I did not see the Lord God as taking care of all things in my life, that I was dead to the law and the rudiments of the world, and therefore I did not even have to fear fear and resentment, either.
Hallelujah for all that Jesus has accomplished as is still accomplishing in me:
"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:" (Philippians 1: 6)
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