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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