My daily devoition today is Joseph Prince's Devitional, a one year program available on YouVersion, my thoughts follow it, highlighted in yellow:
God Remembers Your Sins No More
Hebrews 10:17
17… “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
I don’t know about you, but I would say that Hebrews 10:17 is good news. God sees all our sins — past, present and future — and says, “Your sins I remember no more!” The words “no more” are a strong double negative in the original Greek text. In other words, God is saying, “Your sins I will by no means ever remember!”
Has God lowered His standards? No, He is still perfectly holy. He did remember all our sins — 2,000 years ago at the cross. Every sin that we have committed or will commit has been punished to the full in the body of Jesus Christ at the cross. That is why today, God remembers our sins no more. We should, therefore, not be sin-conscious.
Each time we feel condemned for our past mistakes, God wants us to remember the cross and say, “Lord Jesus, you were sentenced for this sin I committed. You bore the judgment, so God will not judge me for this sin. You were condemned for this sin, so God will not condemn me for it.”
If you don’t look to the cross, you will become sin-conscious and you will walk around with a certain expectation of judgment. And that expectation of judgment will give the devil a chance to get you thinking that God has something against you because of your sin.
You must come to the place where you know and believe that all your sins are forgiven, that there is no sin that will ever disqualify you from God’s blessings, that you are saved eternally.
Hebrews 10:12, 14 says, “But this Man [Jesus], after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God… For by one offering He has perfected forever…”
You and I are perfected forever because of Jesus’ perfect work on the cross. We are perfected by God’s full acceptance and perfect delight in His Son’s work that has so glorified His holiness. Beloved, hear God say to you, “I will be merciful. Your sins and lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
Thought For The Day
Every sin that we have committed or will commit has been punished to the full in the body of Jesus Christ at the cross.
Think about this for a minute. Every sin that we have committed, past, present (if you happen to be sinning right now) and future is punished to the fullest extent of the "Law" to quote a common phrase that is often used today. Think about it, the "Law", God's Law, requires death for our sin, any sin we commit requires our death under God's law because he is holy, and cannot stand sin. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life in Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23 makes it perfectly clear that it is not punishment per se, this is something that sin earns us and that is important, very important. Think about this for a minute. You know your unsaved friend or co-worker who asks "Why would a loving God send me to hell?" Think about what Romans 6:23 says "The Wages of Sin" I especially like the NKJV or KJV translation, because it clarifies this for us. A wage is something we earn, right? So when you think about it, and are trying to witness to someone and the question "Why would a Loving God send me to hell?" comes up, bear this in mind, and use this verse as a teaching moment. Possibly use vacation time as a comparative illustration, you earn vacation time, right, it's not just given to you, you do something to earn it, you go to work every day that you are supposed to and it accumulates, if you don't go to work, what do you earn? Nothing. Let's look at the second part of that verse "but the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE IN JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD" so when the "Why would a...?" question comes up, use a comparative illustration like above, and then consider and use the second half of the verese. This verse says God has a gift to give us. A gift is given for what? It is generally unmeritted favor, I mean in our culture we have gift giving all wrong, often we give a gift at say Christmas time, we expect that we will get a gift back, right? You do nothing to earn a gift. Think of your birthday, you are given gifts. Did you really do anything to earn that gift? No, it is given to you freely, no strings attached, unmeritted favor, and this is what the scripture teaches us that Eternal Life, or salvation is. Unmeritted favor. You've heard the old addage, Grace is getting what we don't deserve, Mercy is NOT getting what we do deserve. So stress this point when witnessing, it is effective, and true. This is stressed in the thought for the day above, but I will stress it again here:
Think about this for a minute. Every sin that we have committed, past, present (if you happen to be sinning right now) and future is punished to the fullest extent of the "Law" to quote a common phrase that is often used today. Think about it, the "Law", God's Law, requires death for our sin, any sin we commit requires our death under God's law because he is holy, and cannot stand sin. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life in Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23 makes it perfectly clear that it is not punishment per se, this is something that sin earns us and that is important, very important. Think about this for a minute. You know your unsaved friend or co-worker who asks "Why would a loving God send me to hell?" Think about what Romans 6:23 says "The Wages of Sin" I especially like the NKJV or KJV translation, because it clarifies this for us. A wage is something we earn, right? So when you think about it, and are trying to witness to someone and the question "Why would a Loving God send me to hell?" comes up, bear this in mind, and use this verse as a teaching moment. Possibly use vacation time as a comparative illustration, you earn vacation time, right, it's not just given to you, you do something to earn it, you go to work every day that you are supposed to and it accumulates, if you don't go to work, what do you earn? Nothing. Let's look at the second part of that verse "but the GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE IN JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD" so when the "Why would a...?" question comes up, use a comparative illustration like above, and then consider and use the second half of the verese. This verse says God has a gift to give us. A gift is given for what? It is generally unmeritted favor, I mean in our culture we have gift giving all wrong, often we give a gift at say Christmas time, we expect that we will get a gift back, right? You do nothing to earn a gift. Think of your birthday, you are given gifts. Did you really do anything to earn that gift? No, it is given to you freely, no strings attached, unmeritted favor, and this is what the scripture teaches us that Eternal Life, or salvation is. Unmeritted favor. You've heard the old addage, Grace is getting what we don't deserve, Mercy is NOT getting what we do deserve. So stress this point when witnessing, it is effective, and true. This is stressed in the thought for the day above, but I will stress it again here:
Every sin that we have committed or will commit has been punished to the full in the body of Jesus Christ at the cross.
Every sin... that's a lot of sins...Every... you can't put a number on it. All we must do is what, reach out and take that gift, that unmeritted favor...accept it. Pretty powerful stuff, no? As believers, we are called to share this unmeritted favor, this gift with everyone around us...This is being a good neighbour as in the story of the good Samaratin, the disciples asked: "who is our neighbour?" Jesus then shared that parable...We MUST do this...we MUST share this...if we don't, how can we truly call ourselves followers of Christ?
-Michael
Every sin... that's a lot of sins...Every... you can't put a number on it. All we must do is what, reach out and take that gift, that unmeritted favor...accept it. Pretty powerful stuff, no? As believers, we are called to share this unmeritted favor, this gift with everyone around us...This is being a good neighbour as in the story of the good Samaratin, the disciples asked: "who is our neighbour?" Jesus then shared that parable...We MUST do this...we MUST share this...if we don't, how can we truly call ourselves followers of Christ?
-Michael
