Saturday, November 28, 2020

PT-1 "God's Pardon" (Matt. 6:12)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/28/2020 2:05 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus: PT-1 “God’s Pardon”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 6:12

 

            Message of the verse:  12 ’And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”  “12 Forgive us what we owe to you, as we have also forgiven those who owe anything to us” (Philips). 

 

            In today’s SD and for a few more after this one we will be looking at what the Bible has to say about sin.  Now I realize that we will not get to look at all the Bible has to say about sin, but I hope that once we are done with this subject that all of us will know more about sin than we did before we began this section.  I have to say that we also will be looking at verses 14-15 in this study and so I will quote those two verses, which by the way are very difficult to understand.  “14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 "But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”  Perhaps some of you have read these two verses and kind of throw up your hands and wonder what in the world do they mean.  I want to clear up one thing about them, and that is we must remember that Jesus is talking to believers as He begins this section with the words “Our Father,” and so those who are not true believers in Jesus Christ do not have God as their Father.

 

            Another thing I want to mention is that much of what I am learning about this prayer comes from things that I have read and listened to from John MacArthur and today we want to look at some quotes from his book “Jesus’ Pattern of Prayer.”

 

            MacArthur begins this chapter “And Forgive Us Our Debts”—The Pardon of Prayer, Part 1)” with these words “The most essential and the most blessed and the most costly thing God ever did was to provide man the forgiveness of sin.

            “It is most essential because it keeps us from hell and gives us joy in this life.

            “It is most blessed because it introduces us into a fellowship with God that goes on forever.

            “And it is most costly because it cost the Son of God His life.

            “Forgiveness of sin is the greatest need of the human heart, because sin has a twofold effect.  It promises to damn men forever while at the same time robbing them of the fullness of life by burdening the conscience with unrelenting guilt.

            “Sin is unquestionably the major problem in the life of man.”

 

            Think about this rather long quote and see if perhaps you would agree with what is written.  Think about life without sin, how it was at first in the garden in the first two chapters of Genesis.  I know that is hard to do, for we are all born with that sin nature, and that is why we sin.  Let me ask you a question to affirm what I am saying here.  Did anyone who is a parent ever have to teach your child to do something wrong, or do they do it all on their own? 

 

            Let me say that the following and that is that forgiveness is man’s deepest need now and in the future, for both health and heaven, and so this is the first petition related to man’s soul in this prayer that Jesus is giving us here.  MacArthur writes that “This is where God and man must meet.  For before God can ever lead us at all (let along lead us not into temptation), we must have a relationship to Him that is possible only when our sins are dealt with.

            “He is a holy God of purer eyes than to behold evil.  He cannot look upon iniquity (see Habakkuk 1:13) ‘Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they?’  ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts,’ says Isaiah.  There is no way that holy God can possibly entertain a relationship with unholy men unless there is forgiveness of sin.”

 

            Now as we continue looking at this subject in our next SD we want to talk about four principles from which we will take four words out of those principles.

 

11/28/2020 2:39 PM

 

 

 

 

 

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