Forgiven

 The Bible is a love story, the story of God’s love for mankind in general and love for His people in particular. We have been looking at the manifestation of God’s love to His people through the spiritual blessings He has bestowed upon us. The apostle Paul calls them every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). We have reflected upon God’s blessing of redemption (Ephesians 1:7) and seen how that blessing is pictured in the love story of Boaz and Ruth -- just as Boaz paid a ransom to save Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, from poverty and took them under his wing (Ruth 2:12 and 3:9), God paid a ransom, the life of His only begotten Son, to save us from slavery to sin and take us under His wing (Psalm 91:4) by bringing us into His family (Ephesians 1:5).
 
But that is where the analogy ends, for God has done for us something that Boaz could never do for Ruth - something that no mere man could ever do for another. God has forgiven our sins. We are all sinners. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), so if God has chosen to redeem us and bring us into His family, if He desires to fellowship with us as sons and daughters, He must forgive us. As believers, we received God's forgiveness when we repented (denounced and turned away from) our sins and turned to Jesus Christ for salvation. Now all of our sins are forgiven forever. God has reached down and lifted us up to fellowship with Himself in the light.
 
The apostle John tells us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), so we had to be lifted out of the darkness of sin to fellowship with Him. Amazingly, God desires our fellowship, so He has graciously blessed us with the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us (Ephesians 1:7-8). For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, (1 Peter 3:18).  We need to understand that forgiveness is more than just a gift from God. Without forgiveness, we could never, ever fellowship with Him, and “we were made for God….made to know him and love him and be with him in a fellowship that is satisfying to the soul and, because it is satisfying to the soul, it is glorifying to His name (John Piper, DesiringGod.org).
 
This blessing of forgiveness was costly to God. Without the shedding of Blood, there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22), and Christ shed His blood for our sins, having been offered once to bear the sins of many (Hebrews 9:28). God may be calling you today to turn….from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that [you] may receive forgiveness of sins (Acts 26:18). Although you are dead in your sins, they have been nailed to the cross with Christ, and you will be alive together with Him, with all your sins forgiven (Colossians 2:13-14), forever. God graciously forgives all of who believe. He has promised to cast all your sins into the depth of the sea (Micah 7:19) and “remember your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25).
 
“Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
 
Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin,
And be washed in the blood of the Lamb;
There’s a fountain flowing for the soul unclean,
Oh, be washed in the blood of the Lamb!”
(Elisha Hoffman, 1878)

May we all take advantage of all our blessings in Christ,
Suzie
 
 

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