We Have the Benefit of Forgiveness         

          Read from Scripture  what the Ultimate Father did.  “For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, that whoever, believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)  Those who receive the Father’s gift,  receives all the Father has.  The Bible gives us this wonderful truth, “What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate.  He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father.  So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world.  But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’  So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”  (Galatians 4:1-7)

1 John 1:9 says,  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

When a person acknowledges his sin and in repentance confesses those sins before the Lord, his sins are forgiven.  By virtue of the cleansing effect of Jesus’ atoning death the repentant sinner is fit for fellowship with God the Father, Jesus His Son and enabled to walk in step with the Holy Spirit. (The New American Commentary)

John instructs Christians on what to do when sin overcomes them and the benefits of confession to the Lord.

It begins with confession: “confess” (is homologeō – ὁμολογεω) means to agree with another or rather to agree with God as to all the implication of the sin committed by the child of God.  This includes the hatred of that sin, the Christians sense of guilt because of it and his heart desire to put that sin out of his life. (Wuest’s Word Study in the Greek New Testament; Word Studies in the New Testament)   The Christian who is forgiven of a confess sin has the spirit and heart of King David who wrote, “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”  (Psalm 51:17)

Walter B. Knight wrote about “A man who was deeply convicted of sin and about his need for the Savior.  Restlessly, he wondered one night along a country road, seeking relief for his misery.  When he became tired, he sat down by some hedges.  After sitting for a while, on the other side of the hedge he heard two girls in conversation.  One girl had heard a sermon about forgiveness, she said it brought her so much comfort.  The sermon brought out a statement that has been spoken by most of us, ‘You made your bed, now lie in it.’ (Knight’s Treasury of 2,000 Illustrations)

The Bible records the words of the Greatest Teacher of all time, ‘Your sins are forgiven…  I want you to know that Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” (Mark 2:10)  I like the words written by Micah, “You will again have compassion on us;  you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:19)

God does not hold our sins against us once we have called upon Christ for forgiveness in repentance.