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I Just Don't Feel Forgiven! part 3 - What'cha Lookin' At?

10/29/2012

For a couple of weeks we’ve looked at what to do when we just don’t feel like we are forgiven. This week I want to probe deeper into where our eyes might be when this happens.

            There are times when we just don’t feel forgiven that our problem is that we are working on the basis of our feelings rather than our faith. But there are other times when this happens that there is something deeper going on that blocks forgiveness. Until that blockage is removed, we will not experience the joy of forgiveness—or at least the joy of restored fellowship with God.

            The Bible speaks of things that bring a barrier between us and God. One of those things, according to Psalm 66:18, has to do with where our eyes are—or better said at what we are aiming. The psalmist said the following, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” We see from this verse that there are things that will keep us from hearing God—even in regard to knowing and “feeling” forgiven. Let’s look deeper into this in this week’s article.

            What does it mean to “regard wickedness in our heart?” The word for “regard” is the Hebrew word “raah” which means to see. Here the word speaks of our sight in reference to aiming at something. Another way of saying it is that whatever we are seeing is “in our sights.” Imagine either looking through a scope on a rifle—or down the barrel of our gun. We are “sighting” in our target. Other things may be in our peripheral vision, but there is only one thing in our sights. We are aiming at something—and it is the main thing in our vision pattern. That is where we are aiming.

            Our Psalm speaks of having wickedness in our sights. Here is how this relates to “feeling forgiven.” We may confess our sin—and even feel bad about it—but the problem is we do not want to forsake it. The truth is that even in our confession of sin—what we did or what we want is still our aim. We continue to have that person, that action, the desire in our sights. When that happens—our prayers—our confession goes unheard by God. He is not looking at our words in this, He looks at our hearts. We may confess our sin—but there is no real intent on turning from it. If we do this there will be a very distinct sense that we are not forgiven. God is not hearing us until there is a true turning from our sin. John said in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Note, God wants to do 2 things—forgive sin, cleanse from un-right activity. If our “sights” were not altered—there was no real confession of sin. Confession involves not just being sorry for it—but genuinely wanting something different. So, if you’ve not changed your target—from sin to righteousness—from ungodly choices, words, actions, and attitudes—to godly ones—you won’t “feel” forgiven.

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I Just Don't Feel Forgiven, part 2 - Choices Made by Faith

10/12/2012

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Last week we began our look at what to do when we just don’t feel like we are forgiven. This week we will start to examine why this may be the case—as well as—how to deal with these feelings in a biblical manner.

             The Christian life is lived by faith rather than feelings. We get in trouble when we trust how we feel more than we do what we read in the Word of God. The Bible says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” but, I just don’t feel forgiven after I confess my sins. Our problem is that we are placing a higher validity on our feelings than we are placing on what God has said. For some reason, no matter how often we hear it or read it, we think that this verse does not apply to us. We are acting as if our feelings are more trustworthy than God’s promises. If we had hard-core facts, you know scientific stuff before us this might be different. We are being asked to accept something by faith—and that is hard to do. So, because we feel a certain way—that is fact.

Some assert that this whole “faith” thing is hard to do. But is it? Is taking something on faith beyond us? The fact is that every day we take hundreds of things on faith. We look at our clocks and accept by faith that the whole    concept of time exists. If we did not, we wouldn’t wake up and hurry to get places. We reach over and turn on a light switch accepting by faith that electricity exists—and that the whole field of electrical engineering is accurate in saying that those funny colored wires have little invisible electrons running through them. There is this “light bulb thing”—which can actually harness these invisible little electrons in such a way that light illumines the room. We turn on our TV’s without truly knowing how they work. (I mean, believing that there are invisible waves flowing all over the world through coaxial cables—or even worse flying through the air into a big metal dish-like thing on our rooftops—into our rectangular box on our wall—and that we see moving pictures as a result?) We get into cars and buy the line that tens of thousands of controlled explosions are happening in a block of hollowed out steel which moves our vehicles forward? Have you tested these things? So in reality, we do all these things by faith. It doesn’t matter how you “feel” about these things—they work these ways and do these things. You receive it by faith and go on with life. Can you imagine a life without faith—you would only do what YOU yourself could prove—and nothing more. If you felt like something might not be true—you’d have to abandon doing these things until you had absolute proof of it. That would cripple you physically. The truth is that you live by faith every day in hundreds of ways.

Our life of faith is based upon choices—made by faith. You trust the automobile dealer that a car will work when you turn that key in the ignition. You find him trustworthy—turn the key—and by faith (whether you know it or not) thousands of controlled explosions propel you forward. You turn on lights, live by time, and do myriads of things by trusting what others say about them. Forgiveness is trusting what Almighty God has said about what He did through Jesus Christ on the Cross—nothing more and nothing less. So the question is not how you feel—it now is this—Who do you believe? Answer this—and your feelings can change.

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I Just Don't "Feel" Forgiven, part 1

10/8/2012

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What to Do When You Don't Feel Forgiven . . .

Have you ever sinned against God, and afterward struggled to receive His forgiveness and restoration afterward? Let me explain this further for the purpose of this article today. This is a situation where you sin against God. Usually this involves a sin which unfortunately you’ve committed before. That is what makes this so hard. After you sin, you are convicted of it and confess it to God as sin. THEN THE BATTLE BEGINS! The battle is to “feel” forgiven. You struggle with this for several reasons. What I want to do for the next several weeks is to look at this battle from a biblical viewpoint. It is my hope to help us understand that the forgiveness that we long for is not something that is to be felt first. It is something that is “known” because of facts that have been told to us by our God. Based upon these facts we can first KNOW that we are forgiven. The process then works in such a way that our knowing forgiveness will eventually become “feeling forgiven” in the end. But regardless of whether we feel forgiven or not, we must rest on the fact of our forgiveness based on the justice, righteousness, and grace of God that is freely given to us in Jesus Christ.

Ours is a “feeling-driven” society. Far too much of what we embrace is based upon how we feel about it. I’ve watched people commit marital suicide based upon how they feel about their spouse. It begins with them not feeling the love any longer. A popular song by the Righteous Brothers puts it in this “not so righteous” way, “You've lost that lovin' feeling, Whoa, that lovin' feeling, “You've lost that lovin' feeling, Now it's gone...gone...gone...wooooooh.”

As a result of losing that “lovin’ feeling” distance is justified—a lack of communication is embraced—a lack of loving action begins—and further loss of lovin’ feeling is experienced. The more these emotions are welcomed and considered true—the more distance and foolish behavior becomes normal—the end result is either an affair or divorce. The wild thing is that the same is too often true in our walk with God. Consider this: “You’ve lost that forgiven feeling, Whoa, that forgiven feeling, “You’ve lost that forgiven feeling, Now your gone . . . gone . . . gone . . . wooooooh.”

Spiritually, too many have lost that “forgiven” feeling—and in the end they wind up going days, weeks, and some years before they truly return to the Lord. They believe that this “not quite forgiven” feeling justified distance from God—no communication with Him—choices for ungodly actions—and eventually a fully backslidden, out-of-fellowship condition. Ever been there? I know I have in the past. What changes this “feeling-oriented” forgiveness is basing things NOT on my feelings—but on the fact of what God has said. I cannot guarantee that this is an easy thing to do—oh, but how it delivers us from a yo-yo like faith and walk with God. Let’s join together for a few weeks an examine what is means to have a biblically based forgiveness—one that will overrule our emotions and provide stability for our walk with Jesus.

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Articles

I Just Don't Feel Forgiven! part 3 - What'cha Lookin' At?

I Just Don't Feel Forgiven, part 2 - Choices Made by Faith

I Just Don't "Feel" Forgiven, part 1

Biblical Articles

Categories

​Articles

I Just Don't Feel Forgiven! part 3 - What'cha Lookin' At?

I Just Don't Feel Forgiven, part 2 - Choices Made by Faith

I Just Don't "Feel" Forgiven, part 1

Biblical Articles

Categories

Articles