Here are three observations about forgiveness:
1. The forgiveness of God is greatly misunderstood,
2. People like to argue about forgiveness,
3. People long to have forgiveness.
You can understand why forgiveness is such a hot topic. All of us sin. This reality raises numerous questions in our minds.
• What do I do when I sin?
• How can I know that God has forgiven my sin?
• If He has forgiven me, why do I keep doing the same sin over and over?
Here is the good news. All of these questions are answered by the three words Jesus uttered from the cross, “It is finished!”
Jesus paid the debt in full. Nothing more needs to be done, or can be done concerning forgiveness of sins.
I wished I had known this truth early in life.
With each sin I committed in those days, I felt I needed to do something to get it forgiven. I prayed. I promised. I studied the Bible. I made deals with God. But nothing changed.
I wanted His forgiveness so badly, but in spite of all my efforts, I never felt forgiven.
The glorious truth is that there was nothing I could do to gain God’s forgiveness. Jesus had already done the work. He forgave all of my sins. His shed blood took them away once and for all.
When His finished work finally hit my heart, the weight of guilt lifted from my shoulders. And something even better happened. The love of God broke through to my soul. It was the first time that I knew, I mean really knew, that He loved me.
This is what I wanted more than anything. I think we all want to truly know that God loves us.
Understanding this powerful three word phrase, It is finished!, connects the dots making God’s love real in our hearts.
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Why I Wrote Love Is…
Frank Viola interviewed me recently about Love Is. He posted the interview today. Read it here.
If you haven’t ordered a copy, you can do so here.
For those who have the read the book, can I ask a favor? Would you please go to the Amazon website and write a review? The link is here. We live in a recommendation age. As people check out the book on Amazon, they will look at the recommendations to see if they want to purchase it or not.
For disclosure purposes, all proceeds go to People to People Ministries and support the ongoing radio outreach.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Do You Want a Relationship with God?
I ask the question not to provide a “how to” answer. I am really interested in knowing if a relationship with God is something people truly desire.
Peter wrote this: “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God…” (1 Peter 3:18).
The Gospel is an invitation to enjoy a personal and intimate relationship with God.
There is nothing standing in the way. Christ’s death removed all obstacles.
But is relationship what we really want?
I’ve talked to many believers who love the forgiveness aspect of the Gospel, that God does not condemn them. They really enjoy knowing they stand in the righteousness of Christ, holy and blameless.
I do too. But these truths are not the end. These truths free us to enjoy Him.
Consider this promise of the New Covenant – “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Hebrews 8:11).
New Covenant living is all about relationship. Eternal life is all about knowing Jesus Christ (John 17:3).
But is this what people want?
What are your thoughts?
Are the Ten Commandments God's Final Word to Man?
What if the Old Covenant was God’s final word to man?
What if the Ten Commandments were the only means available to us to gain entry into heaven, or to earn God’s love and acceptance?
Where would this leave us?
What would our eternal fate be?
How would this affect our lives here and now?
The Old Covenant was God’s word to Israel. Not His first word to Israel, nor was it His last. But it did define Israel’s way of life as a nation from Moses until Jesus. The teachers of the Law believed Israel’s role in the world was to live out the righteous requirements of the Law, and in so doing, become a blessing to all other nations.
Where did this leave them? The same place it leaves anyone who attempts to gain God’s acceptance through obedience to Law – judged, condemned, fearful and dead in sin.
That’s the Old Covenant, a ministry of condemnation and death.
When read correctly, the Law is God’s word about man, the plain, stark truth. It answers these questions: What is the destiny of a people caught in the throes of a lie? What will be their end? According to the Law, the final stop is death, but only if the Old Covenant is God’s final word.
The denouement of this story has a twist. It is revealed on a hill called Calvary, outside the walls of Jerusalem. A man hung there on a cross, suspended between heaven and earth. He was no ordinary man, and the death he died was no ordinary death.
The man whose hands and feet were pierced was the Lord Himself, the unblemished Lamb of God. His death was in place of ours. Live out the full story of the Law and it ends at the foot of this cross. Look up and see God’s final word to man – Jesus.
Death is not God’s end for man, it is Jesus. In Him we have forgiveness of sins, righteousness and a new way of life defined by the New Covenant.
What if we truly believed that Jesus was and is God’s final word to man?
Where would this leave us?
How would it affect us here and now?
The New Covenant answers – in Jesus fully alive!
Seven Reasons to Fully Embrace the New Covenant
To the fence sitters, here are seven reasons to get off the fence and boldly declare that you are a New Covenant believer.
Paul stated the reasons plainly in his letter to the Corinthians. The passage is 2 Corinthians 3. Read through it. I think you will find the seven reasons to be compelling.
- Life — As Paul wrote, “the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.” The end of the law is death. That is the wages of sin. In the New Covenant, you receive life, Christ’s life.
- Righteousness — The law is a ministry of condemnation. No way to feel close to God or even know that He truly loves you when you keep failing to live up to His commands. In the New, God makes you righteous in Jesus. You are accepted.
- Eternal Security — The Old Covenant was temporary. It had a limited purpose – to show us our need for Christ. The New is eternal. Jesus’ promises and provisions last forever, which means that you are saved completely and eternally.
- Hope — The weight of the law squeezes out all measure of hope. As the writer of Hebrews stated, apart from Christ, you live in the fearful expectation of God’s punishment. In this New Covenant, your sins have been taken away once and for all. You are forgiven. You have Jesus and He is your hope of glory.
- Freedom — Under the law, you were in bondage to sin and death. Sin was your master, as Paul wrote. But in this New Covenant, the Spirit of Life sets you free from the law of sin and death. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
- Transformation — Self-effort keeps you stuck in the Romans 7 trap: the things I want to do, I don’t, and the things I don’t want to do, I do. But in the New Covenant you are transformed into the likeness of Christ, from glory to glory.
- Jesus — Under law, it is all about you and your ability to live up to the standards. In the New, Jesus lives His life through you. He was the One who was revealed when the curtain in the temple was torn. He is God’s gift to you.
It is time to get off the fence. Make the declaration: “I am a New Covenant believer!”
What Commandments Do We Keep?
Jesus said this; “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me…” (John 14:21).
This is very clear. Obeying Jesus’ commands is proof that we love Him.
What commands?
Is Jesus referring to the Ten Commandments or the 613 other commands that are listed in the Mosaic Covenant? Or did He have different commands in mind?
The writer of Hebrews stated, “For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law.” This verse will help us answer this last question.
The New Covenant is a changing of the guard. The Levites were the stewards of the Old Covenant. They had specific duties and responsibilities all anchored to the Law of Moses. Jesus’ death on the cross ended those duties. He was the once for all sacrifice for sin. He fulfilled the Old Covenant in its entirety.
Today, we live in the New Covenant. Jesus Christ is our high priest, appointed to be so by God the Father. With this change in the priesthood, there was a change of the law.
The new commands are these.
- Believe in Jesus Christ (I John 3:23)
- Hope in God’s promises (1 John 3:1-3)
- Love God and people. (John 13:33-34, Romans 5:5)
Faith, hope and love constitute the law of the New Covenant.
God writes these laws on our hearts and in our minds. This is the first promise of the New Covenant. God empowers us to live out faith, hope and love through His Spirit.
The laws of the Old Covenant were the responsibility of the people to Israel to keep. They didn’t have it in them to do so. Neither do we.
In this New Covenant, God gives us a new heart and His Spirit to mark our lives with the laws that are most important to God – faith, hope and love.
Four Promises That Will Change Your Life
This is an astonishing claim. But it’s true. I am talking of the four promises, or provisions, of the New Covenant.
The writer of Hebrews described these promises as better than the promises of the Old. And indeed they are.
They are laid out for us in Hebrews 8:10-12. I’ve numbered them for ease of reading.
- I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.
- I will be their God, and they will be my people.
- No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
- For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.
These are better promises because they hit us at our deepest points of need. We need power and the internal motivation to live out the Christian life. We need to have assurance that we belong and that God does indeed love us. We cry out for a relationship with God, to genuinely know Him. We desperately need to know that our sins have been forgiven once and for all.
On all of these points, the New Covenant provides. Jesus’ finish work guarantees all of these promises. I’ve juiced each one down to one word. In this New Covenant we have
- Power
- Assurance
- Relationship
- Forgiveness.
The world, religion and even the flesh make outlandish promises, but they never deliver. Not Jesus. In Him, we have everything we need.
Take hold of these four promises and your life will never be the same.
How would you describe each promise?
The New Covenant — Does it Sound Religious to You?
This month’s radio theme is the New Covenant. As I said on yesterday’s program, the New Covenant encompasses everything about Jesus Christ. It really is a message about Him. All the promises and provisions invite us into a new journey with The Lord himself.
When I first stumbled over the phrase New Covenant in the bible, however, it struck me as an old religious phrase. Quite frankly, my mind’s eye saw a Levitical priest dressed in his religious garb performing his religious duties. What could be new and exciting about that?
Makes me wonder, what did you think when you first either read or heard the phrase New Covenant?
How would you explain this most dynamic of all biblical truths in a way that doesn’t sound religious or old?
What Questions Are Christians Asking?
What are the subjects that are of most interest to believers? Here is our top 20 list based on 2,355 calls to the People to People radio broadcast over the last three years.
1. Salvation 124 Calls
2. Forgiveness 105 Calls
3. Marriage 70 Calls
4. Prayer 62 Calls
5. Christian Living 56 Calls
6. Baptism 52 Calls
7. Sin 48 Calls
8. Faith 47 Calls
9. The Church 46 Calls
10. Divorce/Remarriage 45 Calls
11. Death 43 Calls
12. Doctrine/Truth 38 Calls
13. The Holy Spirit 37 Calls
14. Tithing/Giving 34 Calls
15. New Covenant 32 Calls
16. Revelation 32 Calls
17. Jesus 31 Calls
18. Grace 31 Calls
19. Assurance 30 Calls
20. Rapture 25 Calls
Which of these subjects hold the most interest for you? In future posts, I will write about these subjects matters and offer up questions to spark interaction. Concerning future posts, I will be uploading those on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
I look forward to hearing about the subjects you want to know more about.
First Life, Then Change
I was sitting at my desk one day, doing my normal work stuff, and the phrase,”first life, then change,” popped into my mind. Most thoughts I have during a day race through my head and then quickly disappear. This one stuck. It turned out to be one of those “aha” moments for me.
First life, then change is the process God works in our lives.
So many of us short circuit the process. We leave the life part out of the equation, and focus merely on the change we hope and pray God can bring to our lives. In other words, we view Christianity as a self-improvement program. God is there to help us better our lives. At least that was the way I viewed Christianity. Like so many, I cried out to God time and time again for His help, but nothing changed. If anything, my feeble efforts made matters worse. I didn’t know that I needed life.
However, Scripture is very clear. I was dead in sin (Ephesians 2:1). Not just me, you too were dead in sin. This is the spiritual condition that was passed on to you by your mom and dad. This ancestry trail traces back to Adam and Eve. They forfeited spiritual life in exchange for the chance to be like God. The decision plunged them and all of mankind into the realm of sin and death.
We hear the echoes of this reality at times. We sense deep down that something is terribly wrong, or feel emptiness inside, or experience an unexplained restlessness. All of these are symptoms of spiritual death. Some ignore these indicators. Others charge out to find that one thing to fill the void. But money, power, prestige, fame or anything else the world may offer are never enough. They leave us still wanting. Death needs to be turned to life.
Calvin spent much of his life trying to fill the emptiness of his heart. He had tried almost everything imaginable, but nothing worked. He turned to drugs and alcohol to mask the underlying pain and emptiness. Even then, he could hear the echoes. Something was wrong. All his prayers seemed to go unanswered. His struggle to change led him to a point of desperation. He turned on his radio hoping to find answers. Scanning the dial, he landed on the station that airs our program in his area. Something caught his attention. He picked up his phone and called our toll-free number.
You could hear the weariness in his voice. “I’ve tried to do the right things. I pray for God’s help night and day, but I keep going back to my old ways. Is there hope?”
I had the privilege of sharing with Calvin God’s process, first life, then change. It struck a chord with him. Thousands listened in as he expressed his heart of faith through prayer. That day, God raised Calvin spiritually so that he could live in the newness of life. I could hear the power of what was happening in his voice. Calvin, just minutes before was dead in sin. But now he was alive in Christ.
The offer of the Gospel is life. Jesus made this abundantly clear throughout His teaching ministry. Listen to His words: I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Once we are alive in Him, the change begins.