Forgiveness

It is nice and neat when we can follow a formula and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we got the right answer.

I remember in elementary school when I was learning how to multiply and divide multiple numbers, it was new territory for my brain. I had to apply all those memorized times tables and I had to know how many zeros to add each time I started a new line.

Once I was done, or at least once I thought I was done I had to submit my work to the teacher and hope that my answers matched hers. But the most liberating feeling was when she taught me how to check my own work and know for sure if my answer was right before I turned it in.

No she didn't have me look at the back of the book, she told me about how to apply the opposite of what I was doing in order to check my work. If I was multiplying, all I had to do was divide my answer with one of the multipliers and see if I get the other number. as long as I did my division right, I knew I had the right answer.

When we have blown it before the Lord, one of the most natural places to start for a Christian is to seek forgiveness. But we're funny aren't we? We somehow think that God wouldn't forgive THAT sin. Or perhaps we didn't ask sincerely enough and God wasn't convinced that we really wanted to be forgiven and so He just didn't do it.

It is so liberating when we discover how to "check our work" . 1 John 1:9 says that we receive His full forgiveness if we confess. You see God is the faithful one. We forget that it was His idea in the first place to create forgiveness and offer it to us to begin with.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9

So here is where I think we get nervous and start wondering if we really are forgiven. According to this verse, we are to "confess". Confession is very simply uncovering our sin before God, and calling it what God is calling it.

Felling sorry and guilty for getting caught is not confession. Confession is also not just tallying up all your wrong doings and handing God the list and saying: "Here You go God, I would like to be absolved of all these shortcomings with an emphasis on #'s 12 and 34.

Confession is not only an admitting of the offense it is also promise to God that you will not do that again.

Lets not get too technical... if you sin again after God has forgiven you, it doesn't mean that God will undo all His previous forgiving. He removes our sin as far as the East is from the West. I love how Casting Crowns puts it: "What Sin?"

But the point of the matter is simply that when we confess, He forgives.

The bonus part of the whole deal is that God makes a promise to US as well; He promises to not only forgive but to cleanse. Now that is liberating! In the words of the song, "Not because of What I've done, but because of who You are, not because of Who I am, but because of what You've done!"

-John Martinez