Category: Thoughts

It is easy for us to equate the character of God with incredible power.  From the beginning of the New Testament – “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” (Matthew 6:13) – to the end of the book – “After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God’ “ (Revelation 19:1) – the power of God is proclaimed.  God equals power.

But what if I told you that this power is not reserved for God alone?  What if I told you that some aspect of the power of God resides in you?  “Whoa,” you might say, “We may have some power, but not THAT power.  No, we are way below that.”  Are we?

The word “power” appears over 100 times in the New Testament.  And as you can probably guess from where I am going with this, many of these occurrences refer to God’s power in us.  If you have believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, God’s power lives in you and supplies the overcoming and abundant power we need to live the Christian life.

Before we look at how that power works in our lives, let’s consider the timeline and person of how that power came to us.  After Jesus’ resurrection, He delivered this charge to His disciples, “And He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high’ “ (Luke 24:46-49).

Look at the last sentence.  Jesus is saying, “Don’t even start on this mission until you have received power from on high.”  Hmm.  What is this power the disciples are to be waiting for?

The next power reference is in Acts 1:8 where the promise of a coming power becomes clearer.  “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  Ah, the Holy Spirit, the Helper that Jesus promised would come to live in us; He will be the source of this power.  Said another way, the Holy Spirit living in us will be the power of God acting through us.

So what is next in the timeline?  THE POWER ARRIVED !!! THE POWER CAME !!!  “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.  And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance” (Acts 2:1-4).  The promise is fulfilled.  The promised power of God has come by way of His Spirit filling His people.

So how did the disciples put this outpouring of power into action?  We will look at that next time.

Here is a brief reminder of the simplicity of the gospel.  CHRISTianity is all about Christ.  It’s in the name.  Jesus is the gospel.  The gospel is Jesus.  The gospel is grace and truth.  Jesus is grace and truth personified.  The grace of the gospel is Jesus.  The good news of the gospel is Jesus.  Why am I pounding this point?

As I survey the evangelical landscape, I fear that we have relegated Jesus to being just a puzzle piece in our doctrinal mosaic.  He is an important piece, but just a piece nonetheless.  He is the Son of God who lived among us, died for our sins, rose again, ascended, and sits at the right hand of the Father awaiting His return to our planet.  And as He sits neatly in our doctrinal puzzle, we argue, theorize, and condemn each other over things that have nothing to do with the gospel message of Jesus.

Maybe the puzzle piece Jesus that we have created is why the world is not paying Him much attention.  But this Jesus the world yawns at is not the Jesus I know.

• My Jesus is alive!
• My Jesus lives in me.
• My Jesus is living His supernatural life through me.
• My Jesus lifts my eyes above the waves when life becomes overwhelming.
• My Jesus wraps me in His arms of compassion when I fail.
• My Jesus secured my once-for-all-time forgiveness.
• My Jesus provides every ounce of goodness, kindness, and patience that I display and experience.
• My Jesus mends my broken heart.
• My Jesus heals me.
• My Jesus drives away my fears.
• My Jesus infuses me with power to do the right thing.
• My Jesus infuses me with power to do the next thing.
• My Jesus leads, assures, calms, provides.
• My Jesus loves me with an everlasting love that I can feel.
• My Jesus is my life.
• My Jesus did not come to make bad people good, He came to make dead people alive and I am a living testimony of that.

Saying “My Jesus” may sound possessive or braggadocios, but my God spoke about my Jesus many years ago, long before His coming.  “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine” (Song of Songs 6:3).  I belong to Jesus.  And if you have believed His gospel message, you belong to Him as well.

This is the Jesus that I invite you to find.  He is waiting for you!!!

When We Sin

If confession, repentance, and seeking God’s forgiveness is not the pattern when we sin, what is?  After all, believers do sin.  We have times when we do not walk in keeping with our identity.  Sometimes we walk according to the flesh.  Well, there is at least one verse that talks precisely about “when we sin”.

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.  And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world” (I John 2:1-2).

What is it that we should do, what is it that we should remember “if anyone sins”?  We are to recognize that a one-time sacrifice (propitiation) for our sins has already been accomplished for us and for everyone in the world who has believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ.  And we are to remember that we have an Advocate who declares us righteous before the Father.  The Advocate and the sacrifice are one and the same, Jesus Christ.  There is no pride in this recognition of Christ as our Savior who has already completed the work of saving us.  There is only gratefulness and thanksgiving and praise.

But what about a serious sin, an addiction, a sin that we are having trouble shaking?  Shouldn’t some form of confession and seeking forgiveness be required to come “back to God”?  Let’s look at Paul’s approach to this topic.

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.  Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:1-2).  The Greek word for “caught” here is not “detected in the act.”  It is more of a “caught in a trap” thought; overtaken in a sin from which it is difficult to break free.  It sounds like what we would think of in today’s terms as an addiction or a besetting sin.

Now the one caught in a sin is not instructed to seek restoration through confession, repentance, and asking God for forgiveness.  No, they are to be restored in their spiritual life by brothers and sisters who are spiritual.  And this restoration is to be done with gentleness, not with shame or condemnation or looking down on our brother.  This restoration is done by those who are spiritual coming alongside.  Those who are spiritual understand how we walk by the Spirit by embracing the power of God’s grace to set us free from sin and sins.  They understand how our new self and new nature are fueled by the power of Christ in us.

Bearing one another’s burdens as we help someone through a sin crisis is extending grace to our friend.  I can speak from personal experience, as many of you could do as well, that helping someone navigate freedom from addictive behaviors can be burdensome on the helper.  But we bear one another’s burdens and fulfill the law of Christ when we do this.

What brings believers freedom from sinful actions and attitudes?  The knowledge of grace.  The knowledge of who they are in Christ.  The knowledge that the power of Christ is flowing through them and empowering them to find freedom.  These answers to our sin may be short, but they are not just pat answers from Scripture.  I have seen this effect in the testimonies of believers from all around the world.

Grace itself teaches us to live godly lives, not a repeated pattern of confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness from God.  “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12).  Walk in the power of God’s grace, my friends.  His death in your place – and the complete forgiveness that came with it – has set you free.

Forgiveness Under the Old and New Covenants

Let’s review what the New Testament says about our sins, even new or besetting sins.  “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us ALL our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).  All means all; past, present and future.  All of the guilt for your sins, all of the payment for your sins, all of the forgiveness for your sins needed to wipe the slate clean happened at the cross, and was applied to you the minute you believed.

The beauty of complete forgiveness is best understood in comparing the two covenants; the old and the new.  Let’s look at one passage in particular that makes a specific comparison between the two regarding the forgiveness of sin.  The writer of the book of Hebrews explains a clear distinction between the necessity of over and over forgiveness required under the old covenant and the once for all time forgiveness offered by Jesus and accomplished by His blood under the new covenant.

“For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.  Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?  But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year.  For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:1-4).

Repeated sacrifices under the old covenant were necessary because the sacrifices only covered, did not take away, the worshippers’ sins.  The blood of bulls and goats could not take the sins away for good.  So repeated sacrifice and forgiveness was required.  Because the author is highlighting the contrast between the two covenants in this chapter, the phrase “the sacrifices can never make perfect those who offer them” under the old covenant suggests that something under the new covenant will make us “perfect” in terms of our guilt and forgiveness.  And this “perfect” is exactly what is coming under the new covenant.

Jumping to the new covenant as we continue in Hebrews chapter 10, “Then Jesus said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will.’  He takes away the first in order to establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9).  When Christ came, He took away the old covenant, “the first”, and established the new covenant, “the second”.  And what was established under the new covenant?

“By God’s will, we have been sanctified [past tense] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.  Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but Jesus, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.  For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10-14).

Please hear these words, “by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”  That’s us!  There is no nuancing our way out of the straightforward reading of this promise.  Christ’s death was sufficient to perfect you, to eternally cleanse you, from your sin.  So much so that later in this same passage we read, “And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.  Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin [required].” (Hebrews 10:17-18).  God is not making a playlist of your sins.  God is not remembering your sins.  Why?  Because you have been completely forgiven.  No further offering; no confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness is required to clear your sin debt with God.

So if repeated confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness from God is not the pattern of addressing sin in the New Testament, what are we to do when we sin?  I can think of two places where that exact question comes up in the letters of the New Testament.  We will look at those next time.

Embracing Our Complete Forgiveness

A big hurdle in understanding our complete forgiveness in Jesus and no need for continuing confession and forgiveness is two thousand years of church history, predominantly coming from the Catholic church.  If you have ever watched Father Brown on PBS, you have heard the well-known start of any good confession, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.  It has been four days since my last confession …”  A true Catholic confession includes asking for forgiveness and agreeing to acts of penance and vowing to not sin again.

Somehow, a version of this practice has extended to the Protestant Sunday morning experience.  Maybe it is a sense of fairness that suggests that we should still pay for our sins even post-salvation.  After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  You cannot be let off scot-free when it comes to your sin.  Someone needs to pay and it better be you, the perpetrator.  And one way you can pay, even the score, and settle your debt with God is through confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness.  But that completely misses the point and the result of God’s incredible grace.

And the point it misses is that God’s grace is exactly that; beautifully unfair.  That is what makes it grace.  God’s grace is incredibly free to you and me.  It cost us nothing.  At the cross, Christ took your place as an act of infinite love and grace, and when you believe in Jesus, your guilt is erased for all time.

Another challenge is I John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Many believe this is describing an ongoing need for confession and forgiveness.  I believe that in the context of John’s letter as a whole, this verse is an invitation to unbelievers.  It describes what happens when we first acknowledge our sin and embrace Jesus as our Savior.  And God’s promise, in response to our belief in Jesus, is complete forgiveness and cleansing the hour we first believed.  I have written extensively in other places about why I believe this.  Here is a link if you are interested.

It is interesting that later in this same letter when John is clearly speaking to believers with the use of the phrase, “little children”, he emphasizes that we are already forgiven based on the finished work of Jesus.  “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake” (I John 2:12).

Another stumbling block that I briefly addressed in our introduction a few days ago is seeing our relationship with Jesus as similar to our human experience.  The human relationship is by its very nature often transactional.  I hurt you.  I acknowledge to you what I have done.  You choose to forgive me.  We confess to each other when we have sinned against our brother or sister.  A distance grows between us when we fail to do these things.  But our connection to Christ is NOT transactional; it is not “I confess and He forgives” in an ongoing nature.  No, we have already been completely forgiven.  You cannot look at our human relationships as a pattern for our new life with Jesus.

Like many things of grace, it is hard to accept a complete forgiveness because it sounds too good to be true.  We have all been taught to be suspicious of something that sounds too good to be true.  But this time, it is true.  God’s incredible grace is just that good.  But it does behoove us to ask, “Is that really so?  Is Jay just on some kind of complete forgiveness soapbox?  What does the Bible actually say about our sin?”  Let’s look at the Scriptures behind these ideas next time.