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May God work in all of us to give us hearts that are tender and sensitive to His Word and His working in us.
This morning I read about King Josiah in my time alone with the Lord. Josiah was a godly king who decided to follow the Lord like David his many times over great grandfather. What is fascinating about this is that at the time Judah did not have a copy of the Scriptures from which to learn about the Lord. Yet Josiah went about seeking God the best he could at the time. That led him to have the temple restored and repaired. It was during that renovation of the temple area that one of the priests found a copy of God’s revelation of Himself – what we call the Word of God. When this happened it quickly rose up the ranks until Josiah Himself was able to hear God’s Word, maybe for the first time. His reaction to God’s Word was priceless and very instructive for us today. Josiah, according to God’s own rendition of this event, responded with a tender and broken heart as he listened to God’s Word. Scripture tells us that he tore his robes in grief and wept before the Lord. Here is what God sent the prophetess Huldah to say to Josiah concerning that event. But to the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of the LORD, thus you will say to him, 'Thus says the LORD God of Israel regarding the words which you have heard, "Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before Me, tore your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you," declares the LORD. 2 Chronicles 34:26-27 (NASB) Josiah responded to God’s Word with a tender heart. He did not respond with pride or arrogance against God – and neither did he reject God’s Word outright as he heard it. Scripture says that he humbled himself – tore his robes – and wept before God. When Josiah heard the Word he knew that Judah was in serious trouble for their rebellion against the Lord. They had disregarded God’s Law and had chosen horrific levels of disobedience to God. He knew from the words that were read to him that God did not think lightly of this rebellion and sin. In fact his own thoughts were that God’s wrath was upon them. I want to take a few minutes and reflect on Josiah’s tender heart – and how we should aspire to have one much like his. Josiah took God’s Word as a Word from God. That may seem a little redundant at first – but it is one of the signs that someone has a tender heart. Too often today there is not a respect for God’s Word. We’ve seen too much written and heard too much said that denigrates God’s Word. Too many people have the attitude that they can pick and choose what they want to be His Word – be authoritative in their lives – and then set the parts they don’t like to the side. That would have been easy for Josiah to do. He could have thought that it wasn’t his fault that things had deteriorated so badly. That was his father’s and grandfather’s doing. He just inherited this mess. He could have argued that he was just hearing the Word for the first time – and that God shouldn’t hold him accountable for everything he just heard. Josiah did not take any of those routes – because his heart was already tender toward God. He wanted to hear God – and know Him and His will. The moment such things were made known to him – he wanted to submit to it. That is the heart which is tender toward God. He acknowledged that God was the One in authority and that His place was surrender and submission to His will – another mark of those with tender hearts toward God. Josiah also responded with distress and brokenness to what he learned about the Lord. A king’s robe distinguished him from everyone else in the kingdom. This was a royal robe – and yet his first response was to tear that robe and grieve the situation that his and his kingdom’s rebellion had caused. His concern was to embrace humility and a truly broken and repentant heart before the God he and his kingdom had offended. Repentance, instant repentance, and brokenness are a sign of a tender heart before God. David did not care about his position and authority – because he knew that an infinitely more important authority had been scorned. His place was in broken, weeping repentance before God. Finally we see that David was not just concerned about what God had said through His Word – but he wanted desperately to know what God was saying NOW. He immediately sent representatives to the only known ones who could answer that question – Jeremiah and Huldah, who were the only prophets in that area at the time. Neither of these two had that great of a place within the kingdom. Huldah lived in the third quarter of Jerusalem – which was a much poorer section of the city. Her position was a common one – and yet Josiah recognized her heart for God and gift as a prophetess. Josiah wanted to know what he needed to do to remedy this situation. How could he lead Judah to return to God? This is another sign of a tender heart. The tenderhearted man or woman wants to know God right now – and lives to see Him honored and glorified. Huldah did not have a very encouraging message for Josiah. Judgment was coming and Josiah would not be able to stop it. He himself would be gathered to his people in peace – but the kingdom of Judah was going to be judged. What I find fascinating is that even with this diagnosis Josiah still sought God and did what was right and best for Judah. He returned to God with a passion and desire that was unrivaled. He not only turned to God, but endeavored to lead Judah to do the same. His life was a labor to see God’s people repent and return to Him. This is what the tenderhearted live for in their lives. Their greatest longing is for God to work not just in their hearts, but also in the lives of others as they turn to Him as well. The more I read of this tenderhearted man of God, the more I desired that same kind of work in my own heart. The more I thought about the marks of that heart – the more I saw where I lacked it in my own. Oh to be a man of God who is so tender-hearted toward the Word, toward the honor and glory of God, toward any manifestation of sin in myself or among God’s people. Oh to be a man of God who responds with a broken heart, a tear-stained face, and a life turned wholly toward God. Oh to be among a congregation of people who embrace the same things as together we seek God’s face and favor in the midst of a generation that has turned from the Lord so hard and so completely. My prayers, dearest saints, is that this will be true of me as your pastor and of each of us as we walk in these days. Josiah is not just a great example of a tender heart – but is also a wonderful example of how we should respond in a time of darkness to seeing our sins and the sins of our culture in the light of God’s Word. May He grant us that honorable work of broken hearts, tear-stained altars of prayer, and repentant, pliable, surrendered, submissive lives passionately pursuing Him. May we seek Him first, seek to see His favor return to His church, and hopefully see a revival in our church, city, state, and land.
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The Utter Uselessness of Spiritual Self Beat-Downs, part 5
Five Questions to Ask to Determine Whether You are in a Spiritual Self Beat-Down For the last several weeks we’ve been looking at the total worthlessness of engaging in spiritual self beat-downs. This is the last week for this series of articles. In concluding them, I want to give you five things to ask yourself to determine whether or not you are engaging in a spiritual self beat-down or in genuinely constructive fellowship with God. The first question is this. Is this leading you to confess specific sin to God? One of the hallmarks of a spiritual self beat-down is that specific sin is not being confessed to God. Instead either some sort of spiritual insult of your condition is being rehearsed for your self-non-edification or you are dealing in generalities. An example of this would be God saying you are bad – or that you are a complete failure – or you’re a doofus for doing the things you’ve done. The living God, as He works through the Holy Spirit, convicts of specific offenses. He does not convict in generalities. Therefore, if you are spending your time in generalities or in heaping spiritual insults on yourself, know that this is self working, not the Holy Spirit. If you, on the other hand, are confessing specific sin – saying the same thing God’s Word says about those sins – that is the work of God. Look at the confessions of God’s people in Psalm 51 and in Ezra. As God worked, His people knew the specific ways that they had sinned against God – and were confessing them specifically. Second question: Is this leading you to turn to God, expecting to be received lovingly by Him? A great example of this is the prodigal son. The father in this story is a type of our heavenly Father. The wayward son had turned to his father already in his heart – admitted to sin within himself – and was on his way to confess his sin to his father. What did he find as he got home? Did he find a father who received him lovingly? Did he find himself shut out and not received? Did he come to his father – only to get the cold shoulder after he confessed his wrongs? What he found was probably pretty shocking. His father was waiting for him – and when he saw him returning, ran to embrace him and greet him. Once he confessed his sin – he didn’t get the cold shoulder. He was lovingly received by his father – who subsequently threw a party celebrating his return. Too often we want to impose on God how we might receive someone else who has hurt our feelings. We hear their confession – but want to make them pay a little more for how they’ve hurt us. That is completely contrary to God’s heart and how He receives repentant sinners. He runs to us and embraces us – already knowing the change in heart that is about to issue forth in a verbal confession of sin. How does He receive us? He does so with rejoicing, with a party to celebrate repentance, and with an embrace that does not require some additional payment commensurate with the annoyance we’ve been in the past. That may be what some humans require – but God responds with grace, forgiveness, and love! The third question is similar to the second. Is this leading you to experience forgiveness from God? The answer we get from our spiritual self beat-downs is this – eventually. He forgives me – but only after I’ve had a good quiet time. He forgives me – but only after I show that I’m going to be good, by acting right for a few hours, days, weeks, months, etc. What God says is that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. That is what is written in 1 John 1:9 – and God meant it. In the moment we confess our sin – in that moment He has forgiven our sin, no longer counting it against us. He does not hold grudges for our behavior – not even partial ones. His forgiveness and restoration to fellowship are instant! There is no required testing period where we have to behave much better. There is no confession plus penance in doing some religious stuff first. There is just forgiveness – full and complete – the moment we confess sin. Is this leading you to live in expectancy of God’s blessing? Here is a hard one for most of us. How long after we’ve confessed sin are we in line for God’s blessing? If we see what God says in Scripture – it is immediate. We were out of fellowship due to our sin – but the moment we confess it to God – we are returned to fellowship and the blessing of God. Far too often Christians feel there is a period between getting right and getting back under his blessing. Just as forgiveness is immediate – so is the expectancy of blessing from Him. We cannot make God out to be mad and sullen – refusing to receive and bless us because, even though He has forgiven us – He still is pretty ticked about what we did in the first place. Remember . . . the Father received the prodigal immediately into his blessing – even after all he has done – all he has wasted – and all he did to shame the family name. Boy, you’d think God would make him pay for all this. But the truth of the matter is Christ Jesus paid for ALL OF IT – for ALL PEOPLE! Therefore as we come confessing sin – we are received with all the same astounding grace the prodigal was received. The last question is this: Is this leading you to enjoy renewed fellowship and intimacy with God? Spiritual self beat-downs do not lead to renewed intimacy or fellowship. They lead to being able to talk – but it is talk where God is distant. He might say something like, “Oh, it’s you – wow, you are actually coming to talk to me?” There are numerous other ways we sadly impose ourselves on God with how we’ve been treated or treat others when we are offended or sinned against. We need to grasp something. God is NOT sarcastic with us! He does not take the “poor pitiful me” stance where He reacts with passive aggressive statements. This is a very sinful and sad representation of Him and His glory. He provided a payment for the full price of your sin. Because of this – and this alone – He hears your confession, forgives your sin, and restores you to full, complete, loving fellowship with Himself. That means that He will once again embrace intimacy and gracious fellowship with you – without you sitting in spiritual time-out for an hour or two after your confession. What is the hallmark of God’s dealing with us when we’ve sinned? It is this – mercy and grace. First, He does not give us what we truly deserve for our sins. Second, He gives us what He Himself purchased with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ – GRACE! You may not want to give yourself grace as you come near Him to confess your sins. Know this though – that is your issue, not His. He hears, forgives, and restores – all by the grace that comes through Jesus Christ. Learn to receive that and humble yourself as His astounding love overwhelms you in its generous graciousness! The Worthlessness of Spiritual Self Beat-downs, part 4
Why Does the Holy Spirit Convict Us of Sin? For several weeks we’ve looked at our natural tendency (at least for some of us) to practice spiritual self beat-downs. For some reason we do this thinking that God approves or somehow enjoys this process. The facts as they are related in Scripture, though, do not support this thinking. In order to make this point I want to ask a very simple question – and then seek to answer it from how God has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. Here is my question, “Why does God the Spirit convict us of sin?” And in a follow up question to that one we should ask ourselves what is God wanting to accomplish by doing this. What exactly is He after or even what is the end-game in conviction? We all know that we do things wrong. We sin. There are times when we sin that we either don’t realize it at the time – or worse – we deceive ourselves that what we did is not that bad. Whatever the case may be with sin – the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of our sin. We’ve seen that very clearly in previous studies. But what is the Spirit’s goal in bringing conviction. If we looked at the way that some of us practice a subsequent spiritual self beat-down, we might think that God’s purpose is to bury us under a mountain of guilt. That guilt is then meant to stimulate a period of condemnation, devastating accusations of every kind, followed by a period of somehow “earning” back our place with God as we seek to do a lot of good things. Those kind of choices do not deliver us from sin – in fact they usually lock us into more guilt, condemnation, and often a feeling like no matter how many times we confess or do more godly things – we just won’t measure up to what God wants from us. What does God want from us! For those who have gone on one of these extended guilt trips – not enjoying the ride or the sights – we wonder why we have to go. We also wonder, like the proverbial kid in the back seat, “Are we there yet?” What might be shocking to learn is that the one driving on these ventures into the darker regions – is not God. God does NOT want this from us. He has a purpose in conviction – and extended guilt is not one of them. You might want to note that I said “extended guilt,” because guilt is part of His purpose in conviction. Let me explain. When David confessed his sin with Bathsheba (along with his pitiful attempt at a cover up – which only led to more sin) he used the following phrase in his Psalm 32 confession to God. “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD’; and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah. Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.” Psalm 32:5-7 (NASB) Let’s take a look at what we can learn from David. First, we do see that David admits to his sin. He said he acknowledged his sin – he didn’t try to hide his iniquity – and he confessed his transgressions to God. That is pretty thorough on David’s part. He agreed with God (what acknowledged means) that he missed God’s mark. When David said this he was stating plainly that God has standards, absolute ones, and that David clearly did not live up to them. Second of all David admitted that he wasn’t going to hide his iniquity. This is an interesting phrase. David had tried to cover up his sin for so long – but now he was saying that he was willing to bring his sin out into the light and deal with it entirely. The word for sin here is telling too. David speaks of his “iniquity.” This word speaks of sin as particularly evil because it means to twist or deliberately pervert something. Here it refers to perverting and twisting God’s purpose for sex and marriage. Finally, David said that he confessed his transgressions to God. The word “confess” means to cast toward and it represents the picture of David casting his sin before God – admitting it and bringing it fully into the light of God’s presence. He does this with his “transgressions,” which refers to rebellion. David states that his actions were done in rebellion to God and His ways and Word. Once David has confessed his sin, note what he says is God’s response. “And You forgave the guilt of my sin.” God desires us to feel guilt over our sin. The fact is we are guilty! But once we deal with sin as David did – God forgives the guilt of our sin. It is comforting to know that the word used for guilt is the same as the word iniquity earlier. The evilness of our sin is what God forgives and carries away from us. So, we see that one of the major purposes in God bringing conviction is so that, as we confess it completely, He can take away the feelings of guilt and condemnation. David then turns others who will read this and offers godly counsel to them. He speaks of calling out to God in times of trouble – in times when we feel like we are in a flood of waters – drowning in our guilt and overwhelmed by our sinfulness. Even in a flood of great waters (read here – our deepest and most devastating moments of sin) God will prevail and will be heard. If you don’t believe that part you might want to remember the depth of David’s sin – or maybe even Jonah’s (which did involve drowning in literal water as well as great rebellion against God). His counsel is for us to pray to God – to call out to Him – to come to Him humbly confessing our sin. Spiritual self beat-downs are useless in these situations. They will actually keep us from God – as well as keep us drowning in our guilt and self-condemnation. Go to God is David’s counsel! David says one more thing here in Psalm 32. He says that as we come to God in this way, God will surround us with songs of deliverance. God’s purpose in all this is not a beat-down – but a deliverance. The conviction of the Holy Spirit will yield songs of deliverance. There will be an encircling of our lives and hearts with songs that speak of how God delivers and rescues us from sin and from sin’s unkind rule of our lives. What does God want from us when He convicts us? He wants us to acknowledge and see our sinful choices as He does. But then He wants confession of that sin. Once that is accomplished and we confess our sin, rebellion, and evil – He desires us to KNOW forgiveness and deliverance from that sin. He wants us surrounded with marvelous songs that tout His grace and His gospel which has won for us such amazing things. May we learn to receive these things as precious gifts of His grace – not resisting them – but embracing them and rejoicing in our most gracious God and His wonderful love for us.  Greetings in the name of our gracious Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that this article finds you growing in grace – even in the midst of times when you struggle with sin and lose. Actually, that is when I hope you grow the most in grace – because the other option is truly one that is empty and meaningless.
So, what do you do when you sin? I am not asking what sin you committ, I am asking what you do when it is clear that you have sinned. Do you run to the Lord to make it right – or better said – to receive forgiveness and grace to change? The reason I ask this is that unfortunately there are those of us who think that a little time in self-punishment is in order first. You know what I am talking about. It is when we take time to truly “beat ourselves up” for what we’ve done by sinning against God. Let me illustrate. The reason that I can is that I have a tendency to practice this meaningless religious rite. I’ve sinned against God in something I’ve done. My next step SHOULD be to run to God – confessing my sin. But a little more often than I am comfortable admitting (but I guess I just did), I take a trip to spiritual self-deprecation mountain for a ride on the “beat-down master,” a ride known for its ability to pummel its riders mercilessly. The weird thing about this ride is that the beat down does not come from a source outside of the one riding it. The beat down is self inflicted. The rider takes it upon himself or herself to inflict as much guilt and shame upon themselves as possible. Here are some of the things I’ve heard while on this less than enjoyable ride. “I can’t believe I did that again!” “You are so stupid to sin against God!” “I’m awful – just awful for doing that!” “What was I thinking?!” “I don’t deserve to be a Christian!” “Maybe I am not a Christian – if I do this?” “God is so mad at me – bet He doesn’t even like me anymore. I know right now I sure don’t like myself!” These are a few of the choice statements I’ve heard others (and honestly have said myself) while on the “beat-down master ride. Oh, by the way, I may have kind of enjoyed the ride – but it has NEVER furnished me one bit of good having ridden it. I get off pretty much like I got on the ride. If anything, it increases my sense of guilt and shame – and more often than not – actually delays me from going to Jesus for what I truly need – forgiveness and grace. What I truly do need when I sin is a visit to my Savior. I need to follow the counsel of Scripture in 1 John 1:9 where it reads, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Note, there is no mention of giving yourself a spiritual beat-down before you go to Jesus. That is something religion has added to this process. Now, please understand that I am not saying that we do not need conviction of our sin. That is very much needed! But there is a clear distinction between how the Holy Spirit convicts and how we go to extremes in beating ourselves up over our sin. In fact, in a coming week I will share with you several distinctions between the Spirit’s conviction and our contrived beat-downs. The real problem with spiritual beat-downs is that we are not changing our focus at all. We sin because we get our eyes off the Lord and onto ourselves and the world around us. When we decide to engage in spiritual self-insults and other ways to make ourselves “feel worse” about our sin – guess where our focus still remains? Yep – it remains on us! When we decide to deride the world and bash it for how it crept into our lives – again – we still have our focus off of Christ Jesus and on the world. The best thing we can do for our renewed spiritual health is to get our focus completely off ourselves and the world around us. Confessing our sins to God involves coming to Him. He is asking (actually commanding) that we come to Him and make a full confession of our sin. We do that by stating what the sin was – as we come to Him and turn from it. Note the sequence in 1 John 1:9. We first come to God confessing our sin. That confession involves saying the same thing about our sin that God says about it. If there is a problem with not being “hard” enough on sin, this is usually where it shows up in this process. What did God’s Word say about your sin? That is what you are to say to God that it is as you make your confession. Don’t come to Him saying that you slipped up – admit that you were angry – filled with rage – that you lusted – you were greedy – you were unkind – you were unforgiving – or any number of things God says is sin. BUT . . . when you’ve done this – take the next step. What is that step? Believe that God keeps His promise and forgives you! That is the next step in the verse. “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin.” There is a promise of forgiveness – and cleansing from all unrighteousness. Do you take it? That is where it is hard – very hard to humble yourself and receive God’s forgiveness. We think we need to be miserable longer. We want to go through some sort of religious penance that seems worthy of our misdeed. It cannot be as easy as confessing our sin – and receiving God’s forgiveness? But that is exactly what it is. Grace is God’s forgiveness of our sin – at the expense of Christ Jesus. Jesus paid the price on the cross. Therefore there is NOTHING – ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can do to merit it. Here is the dirty little secret. We put ourselves through a spiritual “beat-down” because we FEEL like that makes us more “forgive-able.” Let me redefine that last sentence according to truth. We are too proud to actually humble ourselves and admit that we never have been able to – nor will we ever be able to do anything that will merit God’s forgiveness. It is offered to us and given solely and completely by grace! Isn’t that pretty astounding?! No matter whether we are coming to Him for the first time for salvation itself – or we are coming as a Christian for the 10,418th time to confess a sin we’ve committed – the entire matter is accomplished by grace and grace alone. Kinda blows your mind doesn’t it? So, if you have sinned. If you’ve blown it – again! Don’t think for a moment that beating yourself for a while is going to offer you any spiritual help whatsoever. You have one hope and one hope only – that as you come to God – He will receive you, forgive you, cleanse you, and change you by an act of His wonderful grace. That is it.  Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord remind you this week that He has NOT forgotten you - nor will He ever forget you as one of His redeemed children! Have you ever thought that maybe God has fogotten you? Have problems arisen and surrounded you to the point where you really wonder if God has just forgotten you and no longer remembers you or hears your cries? Some might be tempted to think I only say this from a lack of faith - or from not seeing the facts (the biblical ones) properly. But the truth is that many of God's choicest saints came to this point in their lives. In fact, I have come to the point where I am a little shocked if those who are following hard after the Lord have not experienced this. David experiened this when he wrote, "Why O Lord do you forget me? Why O Lord do you hide Your face from me?" in the Psalms. Moses cried out to God, "Do not take us up from here unless You Yourself go with us!" Job had searchings of heart that go beyond anything any of us have experienced - and many of them had to do with whether God had left him or not. This is far from a rare experiece. In fact, the godly men and women of earlier times called these experiences, "the dark night of the soul." What do you do in these "dark nights of the soul" so that you do not give up in your pursuit of the Lord? The main thing you do is turn to Scripture and find reassurance in the promises of God that even as He hides Himself for a period of time - He has not - nor will He forsake you. Today I was reading in Isaiah and came upon this amazing promise. "But you have said, 'the LORD has forsaken me, and the LORD has forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold I have increibed you on the palms of my hands . . ." Isaiah 49:14-16, NASB When God's people had wondered if God has forsaken and forgotten them, God made it clear that even if a brand new mother could forget her nursing child - He would not forget His people. What this means is that you would see all the mothers in the world forget their newborn infants before you would see God forsake and forget His people! What a wonderful promise. That means every time you look at a mother with her newborn - and note how much she loves that little baby - you can be assured that God feels similarly about you. When you see the light on at 2 or 3 in the morning because that mom is totally committed to caring for that little one - you can walk out into the night or day knowing that with an even greater commitment God cares for and loves you! But there is an even more amazing statement made here in Isaiah 49. In verse 16 God tells us that He has "engraved" or "inscribed us on the palms of His hands. The word that God uses here for this means to cut, inscribe or pierce. How do we know that God has not forgotten or forsaken us? Literally - there are inscriptions on the hands of God Himself that will forever remind us of how much He loves us! What are those marks? They are nail prints in his hands that God chose NOT to heal as His Son, Jesus Christ, was raised from the dead. The disciples saw those glorious wounds of eternal love after He rose from the dead. Jesus told Thomas to put his fingers into those nail prints to realize that it was truly Jesus that was before him. The price of our forgiveness and salvation is forever etched into the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we ever need proof that God has not abandoned or forsaken us - all we have to do is look there. That statement - that commitment - that price that was paid - and those wounds that He bore and bears to this day - forever speak to us that He will never leave us or forsake us! Let me close this article with the words to a hymn that we sing. Crown Him the Lord of love Behold His hands and side, Those wound yet visible above In beauty glorified. All hail redeemer hail, For Thou hast died for me! Thy praise and glory shall not fail Throughout eternity! - Matthew Bridges - Dearest redeemed ones of God, know that He loves you! He will not forsake you - nor will He forget you! He has loved you with an everlasting love, and has drawn you to Himself with lovingkindness. He loved you long before you ever thought of even acknowledging Him. While you were yet a sinner - even in the moment when you were your very worst - Christ died for you! (Romans 5:8). His love for you is and never has been because of your performance or your level of recent obedience. You are forever graven on His hands. Those wounds - now glorified in heaven - are there not as a reminder of your shame and disgrace. They are there for the glory of God - who has loved you forever - and who will love you for an infinite number of forevers as time marches outward to the vanishing point and beyond! If you ever doubt this - just remember to look at His hands - and know and rejoice that you have been inscribed there for all eternity! As we continue our look at “feeling forgiven,” we are going to deal with how bitterness and unforgiveness lock us in this state.
Jesus made it abundantly clear that if we harbor unforgiveness in our hearts—we will not be forgiven. I believe that this statement deals with how we experience or feel forgiveness, rather than being held guilty of our sins in a way that would affect us at the judgment. If that were the case then we would be saved through Christ’s blood—and our willingness to forgive. Since the Bible teaches that salvation is by grace alone—we know that this has to refer to something other than actually having sins unforgiven because we refuse to forgive others. How can we “feel” forgiven when we refuse to forgive others? There will be a block in your spirit to sensing the forgiveness of God if there are those you will not forgive. Jesus tells the story of two men who owed debts. One owed billions and could not pay. The king chose to write off every penny of their debt. That servant then went and choked a man who only owed him a couple hundred bucks. Having had this servant thrown in jail—the servants who watched were horrified—knowing how much the offending servant had been forgiven. When his master found out he was furious. He took the unforgiving servant and threw him into the dungeon and said that he would stay there until he had paid up every last cent of the billions he owed. Not only this, but this unforgiving servant was also to be turned over to the torturers in the meantime. The point of the parable was this. Jesus said God would do so to the one who would not forgive others from his heart. What I want to point your attention to is that word, “torturers.” Who are they? What do they do? I’ve watched over the years and I think I may know. The torturers are the spirits who work to breed fear and a sense of condemnation in the one who won’t forgive others. This condition will remain in the heart of the one who will not forgive—until they forgive others. Having both dealt with this sin in my own heart—and having helped others—I can tell you with certainty that this condition is like being tortured. You go about your life protecting your own hurt—thinking that by holding to it and by not forgiving others—you will somehow help yourself in the midst of your unforgiveness. But the fact is that even as you do this you are hurting yourself more than you will ever affect the one you refuse to forgive. That unforgiveness will eventually turn you a growing shade of bitter. In time that bitterness will begin to affect EVERY area of your life. The torture is often this . . . you cannot get the hurt or the incident from replaying in your mind constantly. This only makes the bitterness worse. Your only hope is to go to God with the sin of your bitterness and unforgiving spirit. Then God works in you and you choose to forgive the person with whom you are bitter. That one choice releases the power of God for you to finally “feel” forgiven. Oh that we would see this—and let go of ALL our bitterness. For only then will be come to the place of once again “feeling” forgiven. The truth here is simple - want to feel forgiven again? Then forgive . . . for when you forgive, you will once again feel forgiven. Reject this - and the unforgiveness you hold will dominate your feelings - and you will continually struggle to know you are forgiven. As we continue our look at “feeling forgiven,” let’s wrestle this week with the problem many have in forgiving themselves.
When talking about “feeling forgiven” one of the issues many struggle with is that of forgiving themselves for sinning. The classic response is for someone in this situation to say that they accept God’s forgiveness—but they just cannot forgive themselves for what they did. The result of this is anger at themselves, anger and excessive sorrow over their failure, and even a tendency to slip into depression over what they did. No matter how often they hear that God has forgiven them, they just will not forgive themselves for their actions, words, or attitudes. Let’s take a closer look at this to see if we can help some get over this hurdle in “feeling forgiven.” A major issue in this battle is actually pride. I know that sounds strange because the pride here is masking itself in supposed humility. Ultimately though, this person is saying that they expected so much better of themselves. Is that biblical though? Psalm 16:2 tells us, “You are my Lord, I have no good besides You.” Then in Romans 7:18-19 we read this, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.” These two Scripture passages let us know that in ourselves—we don’t have the capacity to live a godly life. Romans 7 is there to bring us to the same sense of utter helplessness that Paul knew. That led him to cry out, “Who will save me from this body of death!” His answer was simple—forgiveness and freedom were through Jesus Christ alone. When we apply this to the whole idea of forgiving ourselves for failing, we come up with an interesting conclusion. It is only pride to think we will not fail if we are not walking dependent on Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit. If we are not renewing our mind with the truth of the Word—and putting sin to death by the Spirit—we are going to fail and we are going to sin. If we were to go back and examine how we were living prior to our choice to sin, these things would show up in our lives like emergency flashers warning us that a fall was imminent. It is only pride that does not look back and see choices that lead up to every sin we commit. It is only pride that says, “I can’t believe I sinned.” The healthier alternative to not forgiving ourselves is to examine ourselves. There is a post-mortem analysis we ought to do after sinning that would reveal why we fell. We could call it CSI-Holy Spirit. Rather than pout because we blew it—we should take the Spirit’s hand and wade into what led up to the sin. When we do, we will not feel paralyzed in our failure. We will feel energized to a deeper repentance, a greater mistrust of ourselves and our flesh, and a greater dependence on God, His Word, and His Spirit to live a godly life in the future. Oh, there is one other thing too . . . we will embrace God’s grace that is the source of forgiveness—and the source of future change as well. 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. 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.  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. |
Biblical ArticlesMost of these articles are taken from the Calvary Courier, a weekly newsletter that is sent to the folks who attend Calvary Chapel Jonesboro. Due to the response to these articles, we've decided to print some of them which proved to be very helpful to God's people at the fellowship. 
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