SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/23/2017
10:00 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-5 “Complete
Forgiveness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Colossians
2:13-14
Message of the
verses: “13 When you were dead in
your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive
together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having
canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was
hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the
cross.”
I want to look at characteristics 2-6 of God’s
forgiveness in this SD, as we looked at number one in our last SD.
This second characteristic should not be a shocker for us
as it is that God’s forgiveness is complete.
According to Ephesians 1:7 that forgiveness is “according to the riches
of His grace,” and we know that God’s grace will always be greater than sin as
Romans 5:20 says “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” 1 John 2:12 tells us “I am writing to you,
little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.”
Thirdly we see that God’s forgiveness is eager as Ezekiel
tells us in 18:23 “"Do I have any pleasure in the death of the
wicked," declares the Lord GOD, "rather than that he should turn from
his ways and live?” “"Say to them,
’As I live!’ declares the Lord GOD, ’I take no pleasure in the death of the
wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn
back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel
33:11)’”
Fourthly, God’s forgiveness is certain. Paul tells us in Acts 26:18 that God sent him
to the Gentiles “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light
and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by
faith in [Jesus].” The reason
forgiveness is certain is because it is based on God’s promise.
Fifth, God’s forgiveness is unequalled. We read this from Micah 7:18 “18 Who is a God
like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the
remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He
delights in unchanging love.” John
MacArthur tells us “The answer to his question is that there is none. None of the gods of false religion offers
such forgiveness.”
Sixth, we see that God’s forgiveness is motivation as
explained in Ephesians 4:32 which commands us to “be kind to one another,
tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven
you. Just like in a parable that Jesus
told of a man who owed a huge amount of money that he could not pay and so the
person he owed it to forgave his debt.
Now I realize that this was just a part of that parable, but we have a
huge un-payable debt we owe to God, “for the wages of sin is death” but “the
gift of God is eternal life. So we learn
from these characteristics that God forgiveness is complete and for that we need
to get a few “Amens!!)
Looks like we will have a
sixth part to this section that by God’s grace we will look at tomorrow.
3/23/2017 10:23 PM
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