Forgiveness
Forgiveness Is Love
The most important concept one will
ever encounter is that God is love. And because our Lord loved us with such
a great love He made a way for us to be forgiven after sin had entered the
world. Jesus came down from Heaven, became man, and died for our sins. Our
Savior arose again and offers to forgive all believers’ sins. Forgiveness
starts with the perfect love of our God. Forgiveness ends with the love we have
in our hearts for our God. For our sins will be forgiven if
we love our Lord above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves. So
salvation comes down to this. God’s love will always forgive us, but do we have the love
of Christ in our hearts so we can be forgiven?
Spiritual Forgiveness
Faith saves us,
faith makes us righteous, faith forgives our sins.
Faith produces a love that gladly hears, gladly follows, and gladly obeys our
Master. Faith creates a love in our hearts that assures us our sins are
forgiven. To have faith and love in Christ sounds so simple, so easy. But as
mere humans we will never be able to handle all the temptations we will
encounter. We will always sin. Our only answer is to turn to our loving God for
forgiveness, for help in fighting off all the evil around us. We must accept
the Holy Spirit and allow Him to guide us, to introduce us to Jesus. We must
bring Jesus into our lives, we must let our Savior’s
love and peace come into our hearts. We must receive the forgiveness of sins
Christ offers all who believe in Him. And when our sins are forgiven us we are
holy once more. Holy to be one with Christ while here on earth. Holy to walk through the great gates of Heaven when we are called
home to live with our Lord forever.
Jesus came to save
sinners. Our Savior gave His life as complete atonement for all of our sins
when He died on the cross for us. Jesus offers complete forgiveness to all who
truly believe in Him. We receive forgiveness through sanctification by the Holy
Spirit and personal repentance to our Lord. The Spirit offers general
forgiveness (sanctification) of sins to all who have a true faith.
Sanctification forgives our sins until we are able to daily ask for forgiveness
from our Lord. Sanctification forgives our sins as we commit them to keep us
holy and part of the body of Christ, His Holy Christian Church. We receive
personal forgiveness when in our daily prayers we humbly ask Jesus to forgive
us, even for those sins we do not know that we have committed. Our Lord then
graciously forgives all of our sins and remembers them no more.
General
and personal forgiveness are obtained spiritually. We are forgiven by the
intent that is in our hearts, not the physical actions we do, or the words that
come out of our mouths. Jesus can forgive all the sins we commit no matter how
awful they may be considered, except for one. The only unforgivable sin is to
reject the Holy Spirit. For when we reject the Holy Spirit Christ cannot come
into our hearts. The spiritual faith, love, and intent needed in our hearts for
forgiveness can never be present. Sins are spiritual, are committed because of
a lack of love for our Lord, for our fellowman. The physical acts of sin we
commit just show that we have a lack of this love. We are spiritually forgiven:
By a faith that creates a total love for Christ in our hearts, that puts Jesus
number one in our lives. By a faith that produces a committed love in our
hearts which makes us sorry for our sins, and makes us strive to live a
Christian life. By a faith that desires to grow and come alive through reading
the Scriptures and telling all about Jesus Christ. By a faith that enables us
to love others as ourselves, helping all in their needs. When we have Christ in
our hearts we have such a faith, such a love, and such an
intent within us. Jesus knows in whose heart He lives, as well as those
who have not made room for Him yet. To all who have accepted Him into their
hearts, Christ offers sanctification and personal forgiveness through the blood
He shed on the cross for us. Christ makes us holy, sinless. We are once more
part of the family of God, are once more heirs of Heaven. Those who can never
quite submit their will to Christ have chosen poorly. They have chosen to love
themselves, worldly desires, and false gods more than their Lord. Their sinful
will leads them to a home in Hell, to live with their master Satan forever.