I've never see such great faith

Which takes more faith?  Trusting that God has already forgiven all your sin forever or believing that he only forgives you as you remember to "ask for forgiveness"?

That was probably one of the biggest shifts for me in the last few years - from believing you need to constantly ask for forgiveness to trusting that he's already done so - even for "future sin".

That's usually the biggest thing that people want to ask me about - how you can believe that and what that means for your life.  

Specifically, what is a person's motivation to "be good" if you're not always "on the hook" to stay prayed up so you can make sure you're always forgiven?

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In short, it's a different way of seeing "being saved" entirely.  Forgiveness of sins is usually thought of as being the same as being saved, but I don't see it that way anymore.

Forgiveness of sins makes salvation possible, but it's not salvation.  Salvation is the restoration of life that was lost in the garden of Eden, long ago.  It's the accepting of God's Spirit into your life that saves you.

If there is still sin, God and you cannot be together - at all or ever. But through Jesus' sacrifice of himself for our sins, it's gone and His Spirit can come join us and never have to leave.

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But, not everyone wants to know him, believe that, or enter into that kind of relationship.  Most people either don't care at all and don't believe there is a "sin issue" OR believe that you have to keep accessing forgiveness every time you sin - like "it's there for you, but you have to get washed off every time".

The hard thing with that is that you don't always remember all your sins.  Most people remember "big sins" they commit, but don't remember the "small ones" that came and went without their awareness.

Usually the response is, "Well, that's why we just pray for forgiveness of our sins, generally speaking - we don't know what all they were, we just pray for them all, kind of like an umbrella insurance policy".

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I get that 100%.  I grew up in that.  I have moved from that to believe that he actually forgave us of all sin on the cross - past, present, and future and that he no longer holds our sin against us.

The scripture actually says that in 2 Corinthians 5 and 1 Corinthians 13, among other places.  He no longer holds our sin against us - he keeps no record of wrong.

Well what about 1 John 1:8-9?  Doesn't that say to confess your sins so the blood of Christ will continually forgive you?  It does, but 1 John 1 is talking about people who denied there was a sin problem.

John is saying that if you believe or say that you don't have sin, you're deceiving yourself and the truth isn't in you. But, if you acknowledge that you do, the blood of Christ cleanses you continually.

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Somewhere, way back there in time, people returned to the idea that you needed to confess your sin in a way that was petitioning God to forgive the sins you committed since the last time you asked for forgiveness.

That idea is simply nowhere in scripture. The sacrificial system of the Old Testament was done away with the one-time sacrifice of Jesus.  

Now, we acknowledge that we have sin and we become aware that he's forgiven it all and that we trust and depend on him.  His Spirit "moves in" to us by faith.

We don't have to or need to go back, again and again, and keep asking for more.  The blood of Christ continually cleanses us because we've confessed that are people who needed his forgiveness.

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In the gospels, a man of power for the Roman government came to Jesus to ask him to heal someone important in his life.

Jesus agreed and began to go to the Roman official's house and the official said, "No, just say the word and it'll be done.  I know how this kind of thing works, all you have to do is say it." (see Matthew 8)

Jesus said he'd not seen such great faith in all of Israel - that someone would just trust that he said something was true and was happening, that it was true and was happening.

Scripture says he died for the sins of the world - see it in 1 John 2:2.  

We can acknowledge that he did it and be grateful to him, when we realized we've sinned, that he's already forgiven it and isn't holding it against us.

For me, it's a much bigger step of faith to trust that he's said "it's finished" and to just be grateful to him for forgiving me and living in me, by faith.

To me, to feel like I have to ask him constantly to forgive specific things or all the general things I might have forgotten puts it squarely back on me and puts my faith in me remembering to ask all the time.

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I could go into all the scriptures on this and have in previous blog posts, but I'll pass on doing that again here.  Most of the time in recent days people see to just want to hear the basic difference and aren't as concerned about the different passages.

I think it's because a lot of people want to believe it's true that God doesn't hold their sin against them, but it's frightening to think that you might be wrong, might be sinning against God for changing how you think, and might lead someone else astray by even discussing a different way of believing.

It's a high stakes dynamic to consider - do I trust God to have already forgiven all sin or do I believe I have to keep asking because I might get too far behind and somehow slip from his forgiveness and be lost?

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I might go into it another time, but I'm guessing a big part of the basic difference is understanding what happened when Jesus died, was raised again, and sent the Spirt to live in us.

A lot of people know that we are living under the New Covenant with God, because of what Jesus did for us. What a lot of people do not know is that the New Covenant is not at all like the Old Covenant.

When we assume that life with God now is like the Old Covenant, we misunderstand what Paul is saying in Galatians, Colossians, Romans, etc.  

The whole letter of Hebrews was written to help the people who'd grown us Jewish and were now trusting in Jesus - it was written to help them leave behind their trust in the sacrificial system and to instead trust completely in Jesus.

For a lot of my early years, I assumed that when Jesus showed up and began teaching that the New Covenant started then, but Jesus was teaching 100% under the Old Law and the New Covenant didn't start until he finished his work and sent his Spirit.

The new is not like the old.

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Jeremiah 31 says...

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
³² It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
³³ “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
³⁴ No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”