The Pain of Forgiveness

Just to clarify on my last post. I think I made it sound like condemnation is a natural feeling you have to just get over by yourself. I made it sound like, if you're aware you're a sinner then deal with it. Jesus has done the job so get on with real life, man. Well, I really just wanted to get across this immense feeling that forgiveness is not telling you it's ok, and it's not telling you that all is forgotten. The last thing God does is forgive and forget. He forgives you, but that is a pain borne by Christ that makes reconciliation possible. If He forgot you ever did anything wrong, He wouldn't be loving, He'd be utterly dumb.

Jesus knows you're screwed up. He was tempted in every way but didn't sin. It means He knows the struggles faced, so we have someone who can sympathise with us. Sin is bigger than you, but Jesus is bigger than that. If God is in you, which He is because the Holy Spirit indwells all those who believe in His glorious Gospel, then you can beat sin. That's something to have immense peace about. When Paul says don't sin, he knows it's not as easy as ABC, but, to quote the controversial man of the time, Todd Bentley, "I don't think about sinning when I'm singing spirit-filled songs of praise to God."

I have to agree with Todd on that one. That may cause a rift between some Evangelicals, because if a man is slightly wrong on one thing we shouldn't listen to him at all. But I am a firm believer of seperating the wheat from the chaff.

Interesting to feel like I'm side-tracking when in fact this fits right in; God takes your good, that is in you by His grace, and increases it. What is rubbish, worthless, offensive, etc. He burns away with His Holy fire. The pain of forgiveness is like a burning, but it was either Him or you, right? And Jesus took that pain so you didn't have to. So the sin is considered as dealt with, and you can feel free to be burned in a furnace to get rid of the crap, and refine your very self into what God wants you to be.

That's enough clarification for one day.

What God isn't...

The amount of times I go to God, go to Jesus and hope he'll tell me it's okay is beyond the point in counting. I offend God, or sin against Him regularly, every day. It's not something I enjoy doing, but something I have to continue to evaluate. But I still want to go to Him, tell Him I'm very sorry for being a nit-wit, and hope that Jesus will turn to me and tell me it will be okay.

The fact is, it isn't okay. God's never happy about any of the stupid stuff I do. I never hear Him say, it's okay. I learnt a long time ago that saying 'okay' is one of the most ridiculous things to say. My dad would tell me off for lying, or cheating, or breaking something, and then I would say to him, 'okay.' In my ten-year-old way of pretending I'm taking the discipline.

He would say back to me, 'it's not okay, though.' And it would get me every time. Until I started to say sorry instead. It made me think about what I'd actually done, rather than react to what was being said to me afterwards. And when I turn to God everyday, for forgiveness, He tells me it's not okay. It's not okay that I do the things I do that offend Him, or say the things I say that offend Him, it just not okay.

But, and this is a great big but, Jesus is risen! 1 Corinthians 15, in it's mystical power, explains the extent of the resurrection to the point that if it's not true all Christians are to be pitied. I think sometimes I live in a way that is not pitiful if my faith isn't true. But, in that resurrection, I find strength (because God also likes to give that if you go to Him) to live a life that is worthy of the Gospel. It's not profound. It's much more than that. It goes beyond a simple, 'okay, I'll change.' It goes to the extreme that if what is truly on offer explained in that letter to the Corinthians, then it is better to live, leaving behind sinful practices, than, 'eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!'

Jesus loves to offer new life. I need it every day.