SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/6/2021 10:54 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Forgiveness”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 9:2b
Message of the
verses: “Seeing
their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, "Take courage, son; your sins
are forgiven.’”
We begin with a story from John
MacArthur’s commentary: “When
missionaries in northern Alaska were translating the Bible into the language of
the Eskimos, they discovered there was no word in that language for
forgiveness. After much patient
listening, however, they discovered a word that means, ‘not being able to think
about it anymore.’ That word was used
throughout the translation to represent forgiveness, because God’s promise is
to repentant sinners is “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will
remember no more’ (Jer. 31:34).”
MacArthur then writes another story
about a girl who was in the hospital who was accidently shot in the neck. This caused her to be completely paralyzed from
the neck down. This young lady was very
active and being paralyzed was surely an awful experience for her and she
stated that if she could she would kill herself, but that was not something she
could do in her condition. MacArthur
writes “I presented Christ to her and, after some questions and discussion, she
received Christ as her Lord and Savior.
I went back to visit here several times, and one day she said to me, ‘I
can honestly say now that I’m glad the accident happened. Otherwise I may never have met Christ and had
my sins forgiven.” Yes forgiveness is
such a wonderful thing, something all humans need, that is forgiveness of their
sins.
Let us look at some verses that help
us better to understand this wonderful gift.
“Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is
lawlessness” (1 John 3:4), this verse tells us the problem we have as it
defines the image in man, staining his soul with Satan’s image as seen in John
6:70 and 8:44. “70 Jesus answered them,
"Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a
devil?’” “44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the
desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not
stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie,
he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Romans 3:23 shows us that sin affects all
men: “for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God.” We can see from
these verses that sin has caused so great a problem for mankind and having the
forgiveness of our sins has to be the most important thing in our lives, and
Jesus Christ is the one who has forgiven us of our sins, and this surely can
give us a peace that passes all understanding.
In our Wednesday evening prayer meeting the message was on why people
have trouble in living the Christian life and one of the reasons is that
believers refuse to forgive others of the sins that are committed against
them. Jesus Christ forgives us all of
our sins, and that means that we are to forgive others who sin against us,
something that at times is most difficult to do. Jesus told a parallel about this which was
about a man who owed and uncountable amount of money to someone and so he was
forgiven of that debt. That same man
went out and had another man put in prison who owed him a very small
amount. This did not end well for him as
the man whom forgave him came back and scorned him for his lack of forgiveness.
MacArthur concludes this
section: “Because of that bleak picture”
(the verses that speak of our total depravity) “the best news anyone can
receive is the word that his ‘sins are forgiven.’ When Jesus spoke those words to the
paralytic, He must have tasted the bitterness and agony of Calvary, knowing
that the words could be effective only because He would take the man’s sin upon
Himself. Every time He forgave sin, He
knew and anticipated the cost.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have to
say that too many times when I sin I don’t think of what it cost God to pay for
those sins. Jesus went to the cross and
not only suffered and died for my sins, but the thing that I believe He dreaded
most was being sin for me, and also being separated from His Father as in the
darkened world was paying for my sins by His Father.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to
remember what it cost my Savior when I sin, and be very thankful that He was
willing to take my place on the cross.
5/6/2021 11:24
AM
No comments:
Post a Comment