Unending forgiveness

What else is a bright spot through deconstruction and rebuilding?  Forgiveness

We are forgiven of all our sins.  Past sin.  Present sin.  Future sin.

Already done.  

Already forgiven.

This was different for me.  

I grew up believing you needed to keep good records with God so that you could ask forgiveness for all your sins regularly, so that nothing was left unforgiven.

The idea being that if you died without asking for forgiveness recently, you could go to hell for that. 

For example, a friend of mine in high school had a pretty serious car crash when someone pulled out in front of him and he couldn’t stop in time.  

On a Sunday a few weeks after he’d recovered, a well meaning deacon asked him what the last thought was that went through his mind before impact.

My friend said, “Well, I can say that in here” - we were standing in the lobby of the church building.  The deacon’s reply was, “How would you have liked to have died after thinking that?”

The basic idea was out there - if you die having sin “on your account”, then you will face a harsh judgment and go to hell. 

I could go on with other examples, but that is the basic idea.  I don’t believe that at all anymore.

Some people who have heard that story have said, “Well, that’s where grace kicks in - he’d be covered in a situation like that.  It’s the long-term sin that people don’t ‘repent of’ that isn’t forgiven and sends a person to hell.”

And I get that, but I don’t believe that anymore either.  

That kind of thinking means that we’re always on the hook for sin and that forgiveness is always a vague, unknown line that is usually based on how long it’s been since you last asked for it, how you feel at the moment, and whether or not you remember all the sins you’ve committed.

And probably more importantly, it assumes you know whether or not some of the things you do, think, or believe are “sin”.  What does that mean?  

It means that we often do not know that some of what we do or think is sinful.  Pride, greed, lust, hate, willfulness, gossip, etc. 

A lot of times, we assume if we aren’t aware of something - usually a “big sin” as we’d define it - it’s just normal, regular behavior and nothing to worry about.

As time goes by and we mature, we learn that a lot of, or at least some of, our basic attitudes and actions in life are selfish and possibly sinful, but socially acceptable - and so we give those things “a pass” and assume that God does too.

In other words, we have a sliding scale of sin and grace that we create that isn’t something seen in scripture.  (For those unfamiliar, a sliding scale is like when you can’t afford to pay for something because you don’t make enough money and the provider of the service charges you less because of that and/or “they work with you”.)

What we see in scripture is complete forgiveness of sin.  It’s all done between you and God.

Forgiveness of sin doesn’t automatically give you a relationship with God, that’s a choice a person makes or can make.  Choosing to accept or believe what God has done for us in Jesus is where all that begins.  A lot of people don’t make that choice because forgiveness is pictured as something you’ll never be able to be sure about and so they just think, “Why bother?” and move on.

There are a whole bunch of objections that people have to this idea that God wants us to keep on asking for forgiveness all the time.  I’ve covered all those in previous posts and might come back to them later, but it’s a lot and the objections aren’t the point here - complete forgiveness is.

…he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 

Psalm 103:10-12

…if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

It takes a long time to get to where you can just say, “Thank you for forgiving me” instead of “Please forgive me of my sin”.

That might seem like no big deal, but WOW it’s a huge mindset change.  

It’s a huge step of faith to believe that he’s already forgiven everything AND that I don’t have to keep asking for it as if Jesus was a kind of Pez dispenser, dropping out forgiveness as needed, as long as I move the dispenser correctly.

It’s a huge change from believing how I feel having a large impact on what I believe about God and forgiveness.  Before, I’d tie my feelings to whether or not I was forgiven and that simply has nothing to do with it.

Our heart is deceptive and feelings lie to us.  People who are well-intentioned will lay on guilt and suggest you are in need of asking for forgiveness to be right with God.  We are easily manipulated into guilt that was taken from us, one time and forever.

So yeah, forgiveness is a bright spot.  

God has forgiven completely.  

People don’t, but God has.  

You can put your faith in that.