1/12 - GRACE QUIZ- Should God’s children ask Him to forgive and cleanse them when they sin? Josimar Salum
“For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2 ESV
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18, 21-24 ESV
What is there about the message of the cross that is folly, that makes no sense for Gentiles and it is a stumbling block for the Jews?
“Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.
Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!
Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other.
God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins.
God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.” 2 Corinthians 5:14-20 MSG (v.17, ESV)
It may be difficult to completely understand what God has done already to forgive all our sins, so let me show you this passage in another versions:
“To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." 2 Corinthians 5:19 KJV
“It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).” 2 Corinthians 5:19 AMP
That is overwhelmingly marvelous. What Jesus did when he died? He forgave all sins of the world, he forgave the sins of the entire humanity, he forgave all sins committed by all people since Adam, by all sins that will ever be committed even the sins of the last human that will be born on Earth or in any place of the universe!
Jesus was not pretending, he was not faking when He asked to the Father to forgive all those people who made Him suffer and crucified him on the cross. Even if after they heard him asking the Father to forgive them they kept doing the same things. What do you think? Did God forgave them even if they didn't repent? Is God forgiveness conditional? Even if they did not ask for forgiveness, even if they had never repented they were forgiven! Simply because Jesus asked the Father. It is so simply. Jesus Himself had forgiven them!
“And Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And they cast lots to divide his garments.”
Luke 23:34 ESV
PROCLAIMING THE FORGIVENESS OF ALL SINS
The apostles were to proclaim what Jesus had already done and not what He would do in the future. Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. We do not preach: Repent and be forgiven. The message of the Gospel is: You are all forgiven! Repent! Receive God's forgiveness.
“Then he opened their minds (the minds of the apostles and others who were with them) to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgivenesses of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Luke 24:45-47 ESV
God has forgiven all sins of all men and all women. The Gospel carries an outstanding and extravagant message. God forgave us of all sins we have committed and shall ever commit in our entire life. In Jesus we have redemption through His blood. Redemption is the forgiveness of our trespasses.
We were not redeemed when we received Jesus as our King and Lord. We were not redeemed when were born again, or delivered, or when we were saved. Actually we were not saved when we received Jesus. When the Scriptures say we will be saved, it is because we were saved. And we were not saved simply when we said the "sinner's prayer." We were saved before the world began. We were saved when Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead.
“Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” I Peter 1:18-21 NKJV
“In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." Ephesians 1:7-10 ESV
Read this again in a similar perspective:
“Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.” Ephesians 1:7-10 MSG
We don't need to ask God for forgiveness and the cleansing of our sins. He already did.
“Cut to the quick, those who were there listening asked Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers! Brothers! So now what do we do?” Peter said, “Repent. Turn to God and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, so your sins are forgiven. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is targeted to you and your children, but also to all who are far away—whomever, in fact, our Master God invites.”” Acts 2:37-39 MSG
Repent! Turn to God! Be baptized! Your sins are forgiven! Because your sins are forgiven do not continue thinking the way you think, do not keep on sinning! Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!
The forgiveness of sin is a completed matter for God. The death of Christ has completed all that it is needed for salvation, redemption, healing, forgiveness and everything else for all human kind. Men and women should repent and confess sins to receive what it is already available in Jesus. Confessing and repenting is not a condition to be forgiven, it is our side to receive what Jesus has already done. He has forgiven us, then we confess, then we repent. We don't receive forgiveness because we have repented. We receive forgiveness because Jesus has already forgave us!
“Forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.”
Colossians 3:13 NKJV
“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” Acts 26:18 KJV
They receive what it is already provided, it is done!
“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” Acts 13:38-39 KJV
Jesus is the propitiation of the sins of the whole world.
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:1-2 KJV
Propitiation is the Mercy Seat of God. It is the place in God Himself that all men whoever they are and wherever they have done can find mercy. Jesus is the atoning sacrifice who with his atoning blood has appeased Himself not just for all confessed sins, but all sins. There is no sin that He didn't die for. Alleluia! A thousand alleluias!
“And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.”
Hebrews 9:5 KJV
The redemption and forgiveness of sins are eternal! He did at once!
We need to be conscious of God. Unfortunately there are many "believers" who are sin conscious. They are not free yet. They did not receive yet the forgiveness of sin. They are not able to accept the powerful and unquestionable truth that they need nothing, but only faith in Jesus, only repentance into the amazing Grace of God.
“Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” Hebrews 9:12, 14-15 KJV
Preaching the Gospel is not announcing a list of things to be done right so you can have the right to the benefits of God. No. The Gospel gives knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins through the tender mercy of God! The Gospel is the annunciation of God's total provision through the blood of Jesus. The people need to have knowledge of salvation by the remission of their sins.
““And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, To give knowledge of salvation to His people By the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God, With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;”
Luke 1:76-78 NKJV
There is a New Covenant. And the New Covenant depends on Jesus alone.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." Hebrews 8:10-13
There is nothing you and I can do to help God to save us. It is done already! It is completed! There is no way you can explain this, if you do, you became God! I myself simply can't!
When the children of God grasp the understanding of this extravagant Grace they will not live in fear anymore, they will not be manipulated to do anything under fear or constrain by anyone, by anything, but they will be totally free to enjoy their Relationship with their Father. If I was already accepted before when we believed in Him how much He does accept me now! Why doubt about his forgiveness and love? Why doubt we are accepted by him or not? Why let somebody else blame you, accuse you and make you fear that you are less, you are undeserved or still a sinner when God has made you holy and righteous?
“Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!”
Romans 5:6-11 MSG
My brother, my sister! Rejoice in the Lord! Shout praises to His name. Dance with Him! Let us romance with the Lover of our soul, our Friend Jesus, our caring God!
Redemption through the blood of Jesus
We have redemption through the blood of Jesus, even the forgiveness of sins because and solely for what He did.
“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:” Colossians 1:12-14 KJV
What then we should do? Ask Him for something He already gave?
"For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven."
(THE KINGDOM IS ALREADY FINISHED, prepared since the foundation of the world.)
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
(This verse and similar ones are the only occasion someone ask God for forgiveness for their sins in the New Testament. But if you pay attention properly this is not much of a prayer in words than of a calling for true actions. If you forgive others you don't even need to pray this prayer. The point is not that you may pray forgive our debts, but that you have forgiven your debtors. That is what Jesus taught.
“For if you forgive people their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their reckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses.”
Matthew 6:14-15 AMP
It is about benefitting from God's forgiveness as we forgive others. Remember that the work of the cross is not just reconciliation with God, but reconciliation with one another and all things.
Again: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6:8-10, 12, 14-15 NKJV
God wants repentance and confession. Repentance reaches out for our changing, to our transformation inside out and a complete turning into the newness of life in Christ. And it is about fellowship with one another, and it is not just related to our own status with God. No child of God stands alone before Him. We are a family!
“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 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.” I John 1:7-9 NKJV
Here lays a question. Are we forgiven today or were we already forgiven when Jesus died on the cross?
Forgiveness is the very nature of God. God does not just loves us. He is love. God is not just merciful. God is mercy. God is not just gracious. God is Grace! He did not just forgave us. God is a forgiving God.
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