Email on grace
Hi Daniel,
Yesterday was a wonderful day. We were just finishing up a weekend camping church event with my father’s church in West Virginia. That morning we had had good discussions on the Bible in the kitchen while we prepared breakfast for everyone.
So afterwards, when we sat to eat, one of the young ladies sat across from me and asked me some questions that were really heavy on her heart—Justification and Sanctification, how do they work together?
When someone wants to talk about real life, practical things like that subject, I’m really interested! So I explained that our sanctification is squarely based on our justification. We have to keep coming back to Jesus with our sins for Him to be able to fix up our lives. She was in tears almost the whole time we talked.
She had struggled with the false idea that God only forgave the sins that were confessed. That is a false idea because it leads to the idea that all the sins I forget to confess go unforgiven and so I must really concentrate and remember every last one, just to get on God’s good side. Either that, or, to stay sane, I must justify many, many of my mistakes and wrong-doings and only be left with a handful which I can remember to confess.
That also leads to false repentance. Instead of sorrow for sin, it turns into begging God for acceptance. He doesn’t need that, nor desire it. That is not repentance. Yet it is what the vast majority of the 6 billion people on the earth believe God wants from us. It is all satanically inspired. And soon, almost the whole world will be trying to get peace of mind and acceptance from God that very way. “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”
If we don’t learn what it means to cry to a God of mercy, in full conviction of our sinfulness; if we just use religion to go through the motions and never deal with a conscience-reading God; then time will run out, probation will close, and it will be impossible to get to the true God of mercy. Everyone who is ignorant of God’s grace will remain ignorant. No one else will enter through the door to Him by faith. The door will be shut for good.
So I told K____, my friend, that God doesn’t forgive sins; He forgives sinners. I can’t forgive sin or sins. But He can and loves to forgive sinners. (She was really crying now!) I told her that conviction of sin is His business, and repentance and salvation is also His business. He initiates the process of everything; all we can do is respond. And obviously He was working in her and she was responding. We don’t maintain our salvation; that’s God’s job. If we tried, it would destroy us. All we can maintain are the things that keep us close to Him, talking with Him, listening to Him (through His word), and going places and doing things together with Him (through witnessing of His goodness and serving others.)
When He forgives us, He forgives us of everything. We stand before Him perfectly 100% clean. We are 100% restored to His perfect trust. Not clean on the one or two sins confessed, but still in need of cleansing on the 98 sins we haven’t confessed yet. As if He stands over us with arms crossed, withholding He blessed acceptance until we’ve got all hundred sins covered by repentance. What a sick idea!
A pastor taught her only half of the picture, because maybe he didn’t believe the other half, the best half. He told her that confession must be specific, that God will only forgive if we list all our sins. Yes, it must be specific. But when the heart is broken God forgives and accepts and takes us up in His arms. And later, when He convicts again on the same or a different sin, then we add to the list. Oh, how His infinite heart of love must ache because so many don’t believe He is generous with mercy! Oh, how Satan exults to see the torture of God’s precious children because of the errors he has ingeniously devised to keep them away from Him!
The idea of trying to list all sins before God can completely forgive almost killed Martin Luther in his monk’s cell at Erfurt. Trying to list all sins before God could forgive completely is what caused Ignatius Loyola to sear his conscience and to create the gospel’s greatest and most formidable enemy, the Jesuits.
When we fall on the Stone and are broken, God says, “For all those things hath Mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.” (Is. 66:2).
I feel sorry for those religious leaders who have never known true repentance and conversion. They are the cause of many “little ones” who die in despair of knowing God’s love for them, personally. “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” (Matt. 18:6,7).
Those men better learn their trade. They better learn how to pastor, guiding sinners to the feet of the Good Shepherd. And I better learn how to reach people with the gospel, or I would also be prone to be thrown into the sea tied to an anchor.
Good night, dear brother.
David
Yesterday was a wonderful day. We were just finishing up a weekend camping church event with my father’s church in West Virginia. That morning we had had good discussions on the Bible in the kitchen while we prepared breakfast for everyone.
So afterwards, when we sat to eat, one of the young ladies sat across from me and asked me some questions that were really heavy on her heart—Justification and Sanctification, how do they work together?
When someone wants to talk about real life, practical things like that subject, I’m really interested! So I explained that our sanctification is squarely based on our justification. We have to keep coming back to Jesus with our sins for Him to be able to fix up our lives. She was in tears almost the whole time we talked.
She had struggled with the false idea that God only forgave the sins that were confessed. That is a false idea because it leads to the idea that all the sins I forget to confess go unforgiven and so I must really concentrate and remember every last one, just to get on God’s good side. Either that, or, to stay sane, I must justify many, many of my mistakes and wrong-doings and only be left with a handful which I can remember to confess.
That also leads to false repentance. Instead of sorrow for sin, it turns into begging God for acceptance. He doesn’t need that, nor desire it. That is not repentance. Yet it is what the vast majority of the 6 billion people on the earth believe God wants from us. It is all satanically inspired. And soon, almost the whole world will be trying to get peace of mind and acceptance from God that very way. “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”
If we don’t learn what it means to cry to a God of mercy, in full conviction of our sinfulness; if we just use religion to go through the motions and never deal with a conscience-reading God; then time will run out, probation will close, and it will be impossible to get to the true God of mercy. Everyone who is ignorant of God’s grace will remain ignorant. No one else will enter through the door to Him by faith. The door will be shut for good.
So I told K____, my friend, that God doesn’t forgive sins; He forgives sinners. I can’t forgive sin or sins. But He can and loves to forgive sinners. (She was really crying now!) I told her that conviction of sin is His business, and repentance and salvation is also His business. He initiates the process of everything; all we can do is respond. And obviously He was working in her and she was responding. We don’t maintain our salvation; that’s God’s job. If we tried, it would destroy us. All we can maintain are the things that keep us close to Him, talking with Him, listening to Him (through His word), and going places and doing things together with Him (through witnessing of His goodness and serving others.)
When He forgives us, He forgives us of everything. We stand before Him perfectly 100% clean. We are 100% restored to His perfect trust. Not clean on the one or two sins confessed, but still in need of cleansing on the 98 sins we haven’t confessed yet. As if He stands over us with arms crossed, withholding He blessed acceptance until we’ve got all hundred sins covered by repentance. What a sick idea!
A pastor taught her only half of the picture, because maybe he didn’t believe the other half, the best half. He told her that confession must be specific, that God will only forgive if we list all our sins. Yes, it must be specific. But when the heart is broken God forgives and accepts and takes us up in His arms. And later, when He convicts again on the same or a different sin, then we add to the list. Oh, how His infinite heart of love must ache because so many don’t believe He is generous with mercy! Oh, how Satan exults to see the torture of God’s precious children because of the errors he has ingeniously devised to keep them away from Him!
The idea of trying to list all sins before God can completely forgive almost killed Martin Luther in his monk’s cell at Erfurt. Trying to list all sins before God could forgive completely is what caused Ignatius Loyola to sear his conscience and to create the gospel’s greatest and most formidable enemy, the Jesuits.
When we fall on the Stone and are broken, God says, “For all those things hath Mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.” (Is. 66:2).
I feel sorry for those religious leaders who have never known true repentance and conversion. They are the cause of many “little ones” who die in despair of knowing God’s love for them, personally. “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” (Matt. 18:6,7).
Those men better learn their trade. They better learn how to pastor, guiding sinners to the feet of the Good Shepherd. And I better learn how to reach people with the gospel, or I would also be prone to be thrown into the sea tied to an anchor.
Good night, dear brother.
David
posted by David | 9:25 PM
2 Comments:
David,
I feel so good that you posted this mail. It made me happy when I read it especially by the fact that God gave you the grace to explain to him the way God does His Accounts. while our account has nothing good on it God puts all His goodness to our account. When He forgives He forgives beyond our expections like you said 100%. one writer said the goodnews is too good humanly to consider it true yet its true. What a blessing that God forgives all our sins.
Dear reader of this comment on David's blong, This week I have been with a serries of revival meetings in a small central African country Burundim I assured the brotherens that I do not keep the sabbath becaused its writen in the law, its because I love the Lord who loved me before I knew him and when I broke it he still considered me His. On the sabbath, therefore, I am in a love relationship with my maker. Friend keep near the cross where there is a precious fountain.
David,
I feel so good that you posted this mail which you sent to me. It made me happy when I read it that time especially by the fact that God gave you the grace to explain to to that lady the way God does His Accounts. while our account has nothing good on it God puts all His goodness to our account. When He forgives He forgives beyond our expections like you said 100%. one writer said the goodnews is too good humanly to consider it true yet its true. What a blessing that God forgives all our sins. so some times it does not require one to go across the ocean to look for mission fields it can even be at your next door or in your office.
Dear reader of this comment on David's blong, This week I have been with a serries of revival meetings in a small central African country Burundim I assured the brotherens that I do not keep the sabbath becaused its writen in the law, its because I love the Lord who loved me before I knew him and when I broke it he still considered me His. On the sabbath, therefore, I am in a love relationship with my maker. Friend keep near the cross where there is a precious fountain.
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