This Week's Lesson

Forgiveness and Walking By Faith - July 22, 2007

Ephesians 1:7 “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace”

Romans 4:7 -8 “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him”

The Bible makes it very clear that you and I can be forgiven from our sins. It says if you’re in Christ all your shame and guilt can be erased. It can all be wiped away; erased; a blank slate. This is what forgiveness is; it’s not putting blame on someone who has failed. God has forgiven us for the sins we commit. Every time we sin we fail, but it's okay. If you can grasp this concept of forgiveness you can walk through life with confidence.

God wants to have an intimate relationship with you; He wants a relationship with everyone. To do this we need to be able to make time for Him by sitting down, lying down, standing up, or whatever you need to do to have a personal conversation with God. The thing we don’t need to do is keep Him distant, because He wants to be involved in our lives. He wants us to confess our sins, because every time we sin, it hurts God. And when we confess our sins and ask His forgiveness, He makes us clean and new. Asking for forgiveness involves repentance from us. Repentance is an action: turning away from the sin, and turning towards God. And the more connected we are to God, the more He helps us resist temptation and sin, the less we sin, the more like God we become. The more like God we become, the less we are tempted period. The good news is- you won't have to struggle with the same sin for the rest of your life because God will help you and set you free!

So we all now know that God forgives! He wants to have a relationship with us and to have this relationship we need to make time for him daily and keep him close in our lives.

Think of a time you had to forgive someone you didn’t want to forgive?
Maybe you didn’t want to forgive one of your brothers or sisters for breaking something of yours that you really loved on accident? You know they did wrong, but out of love you forgave them.

How do you feel when you mess up and someone doesn’t want to forgive you?
You know you did wrong and you feel horrible about it. You say you are sorry, maybe shed a tear or two, and they still don’t want to forgive you. It feels horrible! Just remember that if you don’t like feeling unforgiven, nobody else does either. So when someone messes up and you get mad at them, just forgive them like Jesus forgave us.

Colossians 3:13 “You must make allowance for each other's faults and forgive the person who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

In fact, Jesus tells us that unless we forgive others who sin against us, our sins will not be forgiven by God! Because holding grudges against others causes a hardened heart. And a hardened heart cannot be fully surrendered to God. So really, holding unforgivness toward others actually hurts YOU. It puts a gulf between you and God. Tear down the walls, and let yourself be free from grudges and hardness. God even says that if someone sins against you, you should forgive them 7 x 77 times! that's a lot of times!

Don’t turn your back on God! Strive daily to keep him close! Don’t allow yourself to give into bad temptations that will pull you away from God. Even if it seems like living for God is a struggle, remember that He wants us to live by faith. If you are seeking God, you can trust that He is working in your life, and taking you down the right path. O

Christians walk by faith. Though we do not always know where the Lord is leading us, if we study the Bible and stay tuned into the Spirit, we will be lead to where God wants us to be. On this path we walk, one thing is certain, we will encounter the lost. We will encounter someone who doesn’t know Christ and needs to know about God's forgiveness. In Luke 15: 11-32, there is a story called the Parable of the Lost Son. If you want to check out the story, you can check it out in Luke 15:11-32.

Is there anyone you are holding a grudge against? Is your heart hardened toward anyone or anything?
It’s better to remove a grudge than to keep thinking about it. No matter how long you hold a grudge it won’t get better. In the Parable of the Lost Son, the man’s oldest son was holding a grudge against his younger brother. He was angry because the younger brother took off and blew all of his money. When he returned home to find his father celebrating the return of his youngest son he was mad and was unable to forgive what his younger brother did.

Are you seeking revenge on anyone who has hurt you?
Seeking revenge is like biting a dog back that just bit you. Your pain won’t go away unless you can forgive them. While Jesus was being nailed to the cross, he asked for God to forgive the men who murdered him, because they didn’t know what they were doing (Luke 23:34). He did not seek revenge on them or curse them, but asked God for their forgiveness.

Also, in the parable of the Lost Son, we see that the son took his share of the money, ran away, and spent it frivolously on parties and other things. After he blew all his cash, he was homeless and hungry, and ended up having to eat pig scraps. After all the bad things he had done: insisted on getting his share of the money, run away from home, squandered all the money, etc.- he didn't think he could go home and face his father. But he decided that going home and working as a servant would be better than eating with the pigs. So he went home to ask his father's forgiveness, and ask if he would allow him to be a servant. But even though the son didn't deserve it, because he really messed up, the Father ran to the son with open arms, and loved him and welcomed him home. The point of the story that Jesus was telling is that God is like the Father who forgives us when we mess up. We don't ever have to be afraid to come home to God, no matter how bad we've messed up, because He will always welcome us home with open arms, and forgive us. And so we ought to forgive others.

Hebrews 10:18 “And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.”