Chapter 2
HIS FORGIVENESS FOR YOUR SINS
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
COLOSSIANS 1:14 NIV
10 A Deadly Assumption
“I’m okay” or “I’m good.” The words unthinkingly gush from my mouth when others ask how I am. I know most people don’t want to know anyway. If I tell them, they might never speak to me again!
You say you’re okay when you know you’re not. “I’m okay!” (but I only slept three hours last night because I kept replaying the hurtful words a co-worker fired at me yesterday). “I’m okay!” (but I’m afraid my abdominal pain might be cancer). “I’m okay!” (but I’ve been so down lately my energy tank is empty).
You know you’re not okay. But in the spiritual realm, like the church at Laodicea, you’re likely to pretend you are. Because of Laodicea’s lukewarm deeds, Jesus threatened to spit them out of His mouth.
They thought they were not only okay but also rich and didn’t need a thing. Jesus said they were “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17 NIV). They needed to perceive and correct their lukewarmness.
The primary evidence you’re guilty of a deadly assumption is complacency about your “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked” condition. Apply spiritual truth to yourself before you apply it to others.
Quit considering exposure to the truth you don’t apply as a virtuous spiritual shower. It’s not. A stable, wise person hears Jesus’ words and acts on them. Quit being the unstable, foolish one who hears but doesn’t live according to His words (Matthew 7:24–27).
True repentance is agreeing with God that you’re not okay—you’re broken. Submit to His healing love, forgiveness, and transforming power, and cease pretending you don’t need it.
How is falsely insisting we’re okay hazardous to our spiritual health? Read Matthew 10.
11 Handling Guilt God’s Way
I feel guilty when I waste food. When I was growing up, I had to serve myself at least a little of every kind of food that was prepared. Then, I had to eat everything on my plate, whether I liked it or not.
It’s good not to waste food, but these rules don’t carry divine authority. Your real guilt problem is that where God says don’t, you did, and where He says to do, you didn’t… repeatedly. How do you manage genuine guilt in God’s way?
You’re guilty because you’ve fallen short of God’s standards. You attempt to compensate for your failures through the good you do.
I knew a Christian man who was unfaithful to his wife. Guilt haunted him for the rest of his life. I’m guessing much of what he did in the church was an effort to make up for his failure.
Forgiveness is God’s solution to your futile efforts to make yourself respectable. He wants to free you from the guilt of your failures so you can live all out for Him.
“The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” (Hebrews 9:13–15 NIV).
The best news ever is that God accepts you as you are. Jesus died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). You’ve fallen short of God’s infinite perfection in all He is and does (Romans 3:23). You deserve death because of your disobedience. But God’s gracious gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).
Trust in Jesus’ all-sufficient sacrifice and feelings of guilt can’t simultaneously fill you. When faith comes, guilt goes. Trusting in the sufficiency of Jesus’ death in your place washes away guilt.
In Jesus you have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins because of the riches of God’s grace (Ephesians 1:7). By grace through faith, God releases you from guilt’s chains so you can live all out for Him.
Do guilty feelings make you feel closer or farther from God? How is trust in God’s provision for your sin like flushing a toilet? Read Matthew 11.
12 Bad Enough for Heaven?
Bad enough for heaven? That sounds exactly wrong. Everyone knows good people go to heaven. Well, not exactly.
You’re more like the singers Simon Cowell criticized on American Idol than you realize. They were good in their eyes but not even close to good in his.
You might be good in your eyes. But you’re not even close to good in your Judge’s eyes.
God defines goodness as being like Jesus. Nothing less will do. You fall short of that perfect, unchangeable standard that Romans 3:23 defines as God’s glory. No one does good (Romans 3:12).
Recognizing your badness (compared to Jesus) is saner and safer than proudly depending on your goodness. Your badness doesn’t disqualify you from a relationship with God. Your imagined goodness does.
On February 20, 2019, I heard someone on the radio say that God’s measuring stick isn’t how good or bad you are. It’s how humble or proud you are. That’s exactly right.
The spiritually proud have nothing in common with Jesus. He described Himself as “humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). Recognizing your badness is the first step to acknowledging you need God’s grace.
God gives grace (undeserved favor) to the humble. But he resists proud people (James 4:6).
Patting yourself on your good old back exposes you to the hurricane headwinds of your Creator’s opposition. It reveals that you don’t understand how far short of Jesus’ goodness you fall. It shows you don’t comprehend your need for God’s undeserved favor.
Recognizing your badness is far healthier than trumpeting your goodness. So, are you bad enough for heaven?
Why do humble and bad people, not proud and good people go to heaven?
Read Matthew 12
13 My Bad!
Samples of Lake Erie water can look like pea soup because of blue-green algae called Microcystis. Swimming in its presence can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and blistering around the mouth. It covered two thousand square miles of Lake Erie in 2011 and 700 square miles in 2017. Why?
The Great Black Swamp was southwest of Lake Erie. After people drained it, it became three million acres of corn, soybeans, and alfalfa.
Fertilizer high in phosphorus is often overapplied there. It produces wonderful crops and terrible pollution.
The amount of rain is also a factor. The fertilizer runs off the fields. The Maumee River carries it into Lake Erie. Erie’s blue-green algae population explodes. It sucks up these nutrients like trillions of miniature vacuum cleaners.
Interestingly, these alfalfa, corn, and soybean farmers agree. They all think fertilizer runoff causes the blue-green algae problem. They think somebody else is responsible. They’re not overapplying fertilizer.
You naturally resist taking responsibility for the messes you cause. The mirror is the best place to start when identifying the source of your problems. I usually don’t have to look anywhere else.
Aaron didn’t take responsibility for creating the golden calf when he said, “They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us…. So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” (Exodus 32:23–24 NIV).
Right! Like the kid standing beside a shattered vase who says, “It broke itself!” Mature people assume blame they don’t deserve. Immature people reject the blame they deserve.
How will you respond to deserved or undeserved blame directed your way today? Read Matthew 13.
14 When the Mouse Thinks It’s a Cat
You’re a control freak! You resent it when others tell you what to do or preach to you. You insist on being the unchallenged king or queen of your domain. You’re allergic to criticism. You’re immune to unsolicited advice. You know what’s best for you!
You’re the cat in the cat-and-mouse relationship. Life is the mouse. You play with it first, and then you devour it.
Sometimes forbidden desires tempt you. You playfully maneuver them with the paws of your mind. The Bible calls them sins.
You often covet something you can’t have (Romans 7:8). You know you shouldn’t go there, but it seems harmless enough. You’re in control and can stop anytime you want. You’re the cat, sin is the mouse, and you’re in control!
At the risk of preaching, may I suggest you have it exactly wrong? Sin is the cat, and you’re the mouse.
While you think you’re playing with it, it’s playing with you before it devours you. It’s at war with your soul (1 Peter 2:11). It’s a big cat—a lion! Devouring you is on its agenda (1 Peter 5:8).
Those forbidden desires you entertain lead to death (James 1:15). While seeming harmless, they enslave (John 8:34), control (Romans 3:9), and master you (Romans 6:14).
You don’t see it happening. Sin is deceitful, pretending to be the mouse while it’s the cat (Hebrews 3:13). It’s fun to have a play date with a cat, but it never ends well!
How is coveting what you don’t have harming you? What will you do about it? Read Matthew 14.
15 Are You a Clogged Nozzle?
Recently, my lawn was dry, brown, and crunchy underfoot. Meanwhile, my zucchini plants were green and still producing. Why? I watered the zucchini daily but not my yard.
My Uncle Bill grew beautiful celery stalks for the market. He couldn’t have done it without irrigation. I watched him almost 60 years ago walking through the celery field. He held a wire in his hand while the water was spurting out of the irrigation lines.
He’d stop here and there and use the wire to clear clogged nozzles. Of course, he got very wet in the process!
Every believer is a nozzle. God expects living water to spray from you to nurture others’ spiritual health and growth (John 7:38).
The water represents the result of the Holy Spirit’s control in your life—loving words, attitudes, and actions that benefit and build others up. If you’re a nozzle through whom God works, He’ll thoroughly soak you.
You’ll have the aroma of Christ in your life (Ephesians 5:1–2) and be dripping the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). You can’t be a hose that transports water but doesn’t get wet. So, are you a clean nozzle or a clogged one?
I know there’s a part of you that doesn’t like God’s saturating influence. The devil and the world system organize to try to keep the lawn of your life dry, brown, and crunchy underfoot. That describes going your way instead of God’s way.
Your sinful nature continually desires independence. When you yield to its urgings, you cease following Christ to find greater “freedom” elsewhere.
Soon, you rediscover that “freedom” doesn’t satisfy you. It doesn’t bring the full, meaningful life the straight and narrow Freedom Road does (John 10:10).
Let’s face it, you’re a clogged nozzle at times. A wire unclogged Uncle Bill’s irrigation line nozzle. Confessing and turning from independence to dependence on God unclogs yours (1 John 1:9).
How is God using you as a nozzle to lead others to righteousness? What tends to clog your nozzle? Read Matthew 15
16 Arming the Enemy
You’ve met the enemy and have armed him. It doesn’t make sense, but you do it anyway. You wouldn’t gift an AK-47 and a thousand rounds of ammunition to a known terrorist. It’s not wise for your or anyone else’s health.
Yet, you might arm an enemy of your health by ingesting too much sugar. You’re addicted to it! The unintended results are dental issues, obesity, diabetes, and a quiver full of degenerative diseases.
There are countless ways to arm an enemy and engage in self-defeating behavior. My college roommate didn’t prepare until the night before the tests. Then he’d study all night. His repeated procrastination prevented him from doing his best on exams.
Not everyone learns from mistakes. He didn’t. Sometimes, I don’t either. Experience doesn’t teach. Evaluated experience and corrective action enable us to change course.
Vaping is a dangerous practice, but people do it anyway. Drug and alcohol abuse ensnares millions and often leads to premature death.
A negative attitude repels others. It’s like the smell of Limburger cheese. It limits your positive influence on Earth.
Feeding fear increases worry and reinforces anxiety. Lying undermines trustworthiness. Overeating, under-sleeping, and under-exercising all damage your physical well-being. Arming these enemies often has a spiritual dimension.
You empower them when you ignore God, live independently of Him, and behave like you’re the center of the universe. You pay a terrible price when you stubbornly and foolishly persist.
The plight of the people of Judah is a reminder. “Her foes have become the head; her enemies prosper, because the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe” (Lamentations 1:5 NIV). Enemies invariably bite the hand of those who feed them.
In what specific areas of life are you arming the enemies of your body and soul? How will you change that? Read Matthew 16.
17 Go-to Guilt Fix
YouTube videos are my go-to fix-it strategy for jobs around the house. But they’re not as trustworthy for matters of the heart.
I viewed a video, “How to Get Rid of Guilt Instantly.” It said, “You can’t undo your past mistakes, so forgive yourself for them, forget about them and move on.”
That’s not the truth that frees you. I read comments from those who watched the video. Many people said they can’t jettison paralyzing guilt for actions they’re often too ashamed to reveal.
There’s a difference between being guilty and feeling guilty. God declared the Israelites guilty because of their behaviors. Whether they felt guilty or not didn’t matter (Numbers 5:6).
Judges today declare defendants guilty whether or not they feel guilty. Convicted criminals often insist they’re innocent. They don’t appear to feel any guilt for their offenses.
Similarly, the Israelites rarely felt guilty enough to turn from their wrongdoing. King David was an exception. He acknowledged his sin and guilt. He called it a crushing burden (Psalm 38:4).
Like David, you must acknowledge your guilt to unload it. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NIV).
God can justly forgive you because Jesus paid the penalty of your sins in full (1 Peter 3:18, Romans 5:6). The crushing weight of your guilt lifts, and the gentle breeze of God’s peace replaces it.
It happens when you turn to God from living for yourself and receive His forgiveness. God’s go-to guilt fix is simply taking Him at His word.
He declares you righteous through your faith connection with Jesus Christ. You agree with Him. Don’t hold yourself to a higher standard than He does.
How does a relationship with Jesus enable you to manage your guilt? Do you hold yourself to a higher standard than He does? Read Matthew 17.
18 Are You Good Enough for Heaven? (1)
Bill O’Brien donated more than twelve gallons of blood. He said, “When that final whistle blows and St. Peter asks, ‘What did you do?’ I’ll just say, ‘Well, I gave one hundred pints of blood.’ “That ought to get me in.”1
I threw the javelin for Millersville State College. My best throw was 210 feet. Is that good? Compared to whom?
In 1970 the winning throw at the Penn Relays was about 270 feet and the American record was 300 feet.
Have you ever won an award for outstanding performance? If so, how does your best compare with the best in the world?
Accurate measurements require a standard. The yard is based on the distance between two lines on a bronze bar made in 1845. The metric standard of mass is a one-kilogram solid cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy maintained at a constant temperature near Paris.
Jesus’ words, actions, and attitudes are God’s “good” standard. You must stand back-to-back with Him and not fall short a fraction of a moral millimeter. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.
The God who became like you must remake you so you can become like Him. Jesus’ goodness is to yours what the Pacific Ocean is to a puddle.
Consider three passages that describe Jesus’ moral perfection. “So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him’” (John 8:28–29 NIV).
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV).
“For we don’t have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15 NIV). “’ He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth’” (1 Peter 2:22 NIV).
On a scale of 1-100 percent, how would you grade Jesus’ moral goodness? How would you grade your own? Read Matthew 18.
19 Are You Good Enough for Heaven? (2)
A former biology professor at Millersville State College explained to us students that we weren’t good enough to use a pen for exams. We were pencil and eraser people.
In the moral realm, we write with a pen. The ink represents our words, deeds, and attitudes. We can’t erase what we write.
George Barna’s survey revealed that 83 percent of Americans believe people are good.1 We greatly underestimate God’s “right-living” requirements and overestimate our goodness.
God’s moral standards are like a full-grown elephant’s foot. Our goodness is like a baby’s first socks. It’s far from a perfect fit!
The Bible uses different Hebrew words to describe how we fall short of God’s moral standards.
One word for “sin” in the Bible means to cross over a boundary (Hosea 6:7). As a child you often ignored the limits your parents set.
Sometimes they knew. Sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they caught you. Sometimes they didn’t.
When apprehended, sometimes they punish you. Sometimes they don’t.
You’ve bashed God’s wise and lovingly established boundaries. God’s “video cameras” record every trespass. Romans 2:16 tells you that one day God will judge the secrets of every person.
The second word for sin in the Bible means “to break away from.” You’ve denied God’s right to rule you and gone your way (1 Timothy 1:9). You don’t want anyone to tell you what to do. Not even God.
The most common biblical word for sin means “to miss the mark” (Romans 3:23). You’ve repeatedly missed God’s bull's-eye of perfect love for Him and your neighbor. Only Jesus didn’t.
You’ve not always loved your neighbor as yourself. According to Luke 10:30–37, your neighbor is anyone with a need that you can meet.
Jeremiah 17:9 ( NIV) describes the core of human personality as “deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” Romans 3:10–23 teaches that no one is righteous, not even one. No one voluntarily seeks God. No one.
Do you believe you will go to heaven when you die? Why should a holy God accept you? Read Matthew 19.
20 Are You Good Enough for Heaven? (3)
Isn’t it odd that 83 percent of Americans see as good the same heart Jeremiah 17:9, Isaiah 64:6, and Romans 3:10–23 describe as not good?
Michael Green wrote, “The breakdown of marriage and family, the worldwide increase of torture and wanton killing, the mindless hedonism and greed, and the emptiness of belief and purpose that characterize so much of the Western world do little to support an optimistic view of human nature.”1
To see yourself truly you must look at both your actions and motives. Often, you do “good” things for bad reasons.
A desire to please and bring glory to His Heavenly Father motivated Jesus’ good works. But you want the glory for yourself.
You want others to know about the good that you’ve done. God is not impressed. Romans 3:27 and Ephesians 2:9 assure you that no one will have anything to boast about before God.
Ms. Messer taught English at my high school. Her punctuation tests brought her students to their knees.
When she detected a single mistake in a sentence, she marked the whole sentence wrong. None of her sentences were easy to punctuate! Hardly any of her students broke the 0 percent barrier on her tests.
Don’t think you’ll satisfy God if the paper of your life has more words spelled correctly than incorrectly. You won’t!
Moral perfection is the standard. Only Jesus has it. “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). It’s sobering to know you don’t meet God’s right-living, right-talking, right-thinking, perfect paper requirement. What are you going to do?
“Maybe if I try a little harder, I can do better,” you tell yourself. Like a bee in a horizontal bottle with its base against the window, you fly, fly, and fly some more toward the light, but never get anywhere.
If you could get to heaven by your performance, why did God at tremendous personal cost send his Son to earth to die on the cross? Would not that mean Jesus suffered and died for nothing?
Do self-serving motives at times drive your most praiseworthy behavior? Do you see that as a problem? If so, what will you do about it? Read Matthew 20.
21 Are You Good Enough for Heaven? (4)
Romans 6:23 tells you that sin’s penalty is death. That means spiritual separation from God.
The Old Testament sacrifices were substituted for the death of the sinners. Sheep, oxen, goats, and doves took their places.
The animals had to be perfect, unblemished specimens. The one making a burnt offering placed a hand on the animal (Leviticus 1:4), which symbolizes transferring guilt. It also represented receiving the animal’s innocence.
As you through faith place your hand on Jesus, the Lamb of God, He transfers your sins to Himself and His virtues to you.
He died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). Not for perfect persons but for messed up ones! You qualify! Jesus paid the penalty for your sin. He tasted death for every man (Hebrews 2:9).
You must trust in the sufficiency of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. You must commit yourself to Him. When you do, you get credit for Jesus’ perfect life. He takes the rap for your botched-up one.
“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV). Jesus credits you with the only good that can endure the light and fire of God’s judgment. You receive it when you trust in Him.
Karen Clemente was in a bus terminal in Times Square waiting to take a bus to Hoboken, NJ. A scruffy-looking man asked her for change for the bus. He couldn’t afford the fare.
Walking toward the bus’s open door, she couldn’t decide whether to help him. Once inside, she found the $1.25 she needed to pay the man’s fare.
The driver closed the door and began pulling out of the station. She told him, “Don’t leave! Let that man in. I’ll pay for him.”1 What Karen did illustrates what Jesus did for all humanity.
How will this transfer of your sin to Jesus and His righteousness to you affect how you think about yourself today? Read Matthew 21.