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Archive for October 2011

Oct/11

24

Grace Swallows Up Sin Pt 4

Gal 5:1
So Christ has made us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get all tied up again in the chains of slavery
(TLB)

The key to experiencing the revelation that ‘Grace has swallowed up sin’ is found in Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (NKJV)

Let’s unpack those 3 words, ‘now, no condemnation’:

1) NOW – Now is in the present continuous tense, it is always taking place. Therefore if we sin today, tomorrow, next week, next year; the moment we sin, there is ‘NOW’ no condemnation. The word NOW is always operative.

2) NO – This word means nothing, not now, not ever. Therefore when we sin, not even minuscule condemnation can attach itself to us because Jesus took the judgement for all our sin at the cross.

3) CONDEMNATION – Condemnation follows judgement. The judge finds us guilty and condemns us to punishment: EG – “I now find you guilty of the said crime and condemn you to death”.  Again, Jesus took all our condemnation at the cross. He was judged, found guilty and condemned in our place.

Therefore, this verse is telling us that no matter what mistakes, failures or sins we commit: There is ‘now no condemnation’.

Let’s look at how this works in practice:

We go for a job interview. We come away feeling we didn’t give a good account of ourselves. We can either turn it over in our minds again and again, telling ourselves how badly we performed and beat up on ourself OR we can say,” Father, I performed badly in that interview but I invite Your grace to come and swallow up my mistakes and turn my bad to good. I refuse to berate myself (condemn, feel guilty or ashamed) and I trust the situation to You”.

So, we may have made a mistake, but our heart is at peace and we are at rest, because, ‘where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’

OR – we make a mistake at work that costs the company hundreds of pounds. We apologise and the boss allows us to stay in our job. Nonetheless we know it was a serious mistake and has not been received favourably by our fellow workers.

We can either, hang our head in shame and keep a low profile, hoping it will soon blow over OR we can say, ” Father, that was a serious mistake, but I thank You for Your forgiveness and know Your grace has swallowed up my sin. Therefore, I throw off all shame, guilt and condemnation and I trust You to repair the damage done to my relationships. I refuse to behave like a criminal and hold my head up high”.

Friends: When we utilise the revelation that ‘grace has swallowed up sin’, we will experience the wonderful freedom that Jesus death on the cross has provided for us.

Meditation Point: Grace has made it easy for us to live in true freedom.

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Oct/11

17

Grace Swallows Up Sin Pt 3

GOAT FOR SIN

GOAT FOR ESCAPE

THE DAY OF ATONEMENT

Lev 16:5
From the Israelite community he is to take two male goats for a sin offering
(NIV)

‘type’ in Scripture is a prophetic picture in the Old Covenant pointing forward to an actual event that takes place in the New Covenant. Hence, on the ‘Day of Atonement’ (Lev 16) the 2 goats used as the sin offering point forward to the time when Christ on the cross, fulfilled the 2 stages for the forgiveness of sin.

The whole nation of Israel would gather at the gate of the Tabernacle on this the most important ceremonial day of the religious calendar. The High Priest would be given 2 goats:

1) THE GOAT FOR SIN- He would lay his hands on the head of the goat and confess over it all the sins of the nation that had been committed the previous year. This act transferred the nations sins onto the goat.

He would then sacrifice the goat on the altar and take some of it’s blood through into the ‘Most Holy Place’ and sprinkle it 7 times with his finger upon the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant; When God saw the blood, it was the evidence to Him that the death (punishment) for sin had been carried out.

The first stage of forgiveness had been fulfilled enabling God to release His mercy upon Israel in forgiveness of their sins.

When Jesus died on the cross as our ‘goat for sin’, His shed blood was the evidence to God that the punishment for sin (Gen 2:17) had been carried out. Jesus thus fulfilled the first stage of forgiveness enabling God to release His mercy upon  the world in forgiveness of their sins.

2) THE GOAT FOR ESCAPE – The High Priest now took the second goat and again laid hands on it’s head and confessed and transferred the sins of the nation for that year, upon it; But this goat, instead of being sacrificed was released and allowed to go free and ‘escape’ into the wilderness, never to return.

This fulfilled the second stage of forgiveness which was the carrying away of the nations sins. Signifying that their sins would never be called to remembrance again, ever.

When Jesus died on the cross as our ‘scapegoat’, He took our sins with him (carried them away) when He went down into the grave. When He rose from the dead, He left those sins  behind, buried forever in the grave and rose from the dead in resurrection life; Thus fulfilling the second stage of forgiveness.

Our sins can never be brought back again, ever, to accuse us of our past behaviour. One of God’s promises of the New Covenant, was that, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” Heb 10:17. As Joseph Prince rightly points out, the word NO in the Greek is a double negative, strengthening the denial.

Thus Jesus has fulfilled in Himself the 2 stages of forgiveness. Because of His crucifixion, shed blood, death, burial and resurrection, our sins are not only forgiven, they are taken away for ever.

There are many Christians today who when they received Christ as their Saviour, never received their full forgiveness. They know God has forgiven them their sin, but they don’t know He has also taken away their sin.

Because of this ‘lack of knowledge’ they still carry the guilt, condemnation, shame, rejection and fear of sins they committed before they came to Christ, or  sins they have committed since they came to Christ. Consequently, satan has open access into their thought life and wreaks havoc in their lives.

My friend, if this is you, God wants to give you a revelation that your sin has not only been forgiven but has also been taken away. Our Father does not want you to suffer needlessly.

Meditating on these Scriptures will help you:

John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who ‘takes away’ the sin of the world!  (NIV)

1 John 3:5 You know that Jesus came to ‘take away’ our sins, and there is no sin in him.  (NLT)

Ps 103:12 He has ‘taken our sins away’ from us as far as the east is from west.  (NCV)

2 Cor 5:19 It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, ‘not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses’ [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).  (AMP)

Meditation Point: God has both forgiven and taken away our sins. In Christ we no longer can be condemned (Rom 8:1)



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Oct/11

10

Grace Swallows Up Sin Pt 2

There are 2 great truths found in (Rom 5:20) . Truths that will help us practically to break free from sin in our daily lives:

Truth No 1Made any mistakes recently?  Had any failures?  Ruined any relationships?  Lapsed back into sin? Are we struggling with guilt, condemnation, shame, hopelessness etc as a result of our wrongs.

But doesn’t (Rom 8:1) say, there is now therefore, no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. Yes it does! So why are we still laden down with burdens we should have shed a long time ago. It’s because we are living with an Old Covenant  approach to forgiveness.

What we didn’t realise is that there are 2 parts to God’s forgiveness. There is (1) God’s forgiveness of our sins and (2) God’s removal of our sins. If we received (1) without receiving (2) we will find that although God has forgiven our sin, we’ve allowed it to remain on our conscience. And sin left on our conscience is an open door for satan to come in and play havoc in the room of our heart and use accusation to stir up condemnation and guilt etc.

Eg – We’ve recently remarried but we still carry the guilt for the awful way we mistreated our first husband/wife. We can’t seem to shake it off, and whenever we remember it, the guilt tears our heart to shreds, leaving us stressed, anxious and depressed.

It’s the remembering that’s the problem and it’s because we are living under an Old Covenant (OC) mindset with regards to God’s forgiveness of sin.

Next week we will look at how to come out from under the OC sacrificial system of law that fosters a remembrance of sin and come under the NC sacrificial system of grace that has removed and totally forgotten sin.

Meditation Point: Read and meditate on Hebrews 10:1-18.

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Oct/11

3

Grace Swallows Up Sin Pt 1

Rom 5:20 Sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.  (TM)

When we look at the photos above of a snake and a hamster, we know it’s impossible for the hamster to kill and eat the snake. NO! It’s the snake that not only kills the hamster but swallows it whole; And I want to show in this Blog how grace far surpasses sin, and when it came to a confrontation at the cross, grace swallowed sin whole.

The moment we asked Jesus Christ to come and live in our hearts, God forgave us all our sins and the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed them all away. God also took away our heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh (Ez 11:19), or to put it another way, He took away our old sin nature and replaced it with a new righteous nature and we became a new creations. (2 Cor 5:17)

Now we are no longer a sinner, we are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor 5:21). This righteousness is not second class righteousness neither is it a  low level of righteousness; It is the 100%  righteousness of God Himself. Therefore we can now approach God without fear, knowing the righteousness He’s given us enables us to stand in His presence before Him and makes us totally acceptable to Him.

Rom 8:30 Having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them ‘right standing’ with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. (NLT)

Eph 1:6 To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us ‘accepted’ in the Beloved.  (NKJV)

Unfortunately for many Christians, they know they are forgiven, saved and are a new creation, but they don’t know they have also received God’s righteousness or as Paul puts it, the ‘Gift of righteousness’. I my self have been a Christian for 35 yrs and have been teaching Scripture for 25 yrs, but it’s only been in the last 5 yrs that I have come into a revelation of God’s righteousness.

Paul the Apostle says that this righteousness is revealed in the Gospel message. Rom 1:16-17 I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for in it the righteousness of God is ‘revealed’ from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just (righteous) shall live by faith.”  (NKJV)

This revelation of righteousness is to be received by faith and gives us total dominion over all sin. In my next Blog I will show how this works in practise in a believers life and leads us to live in continual victory.

Meditation Point: The gift of righteousness is to be received as a free gift from God. It’s been given us that we might live in God’s Kingdom which is also righteous. With this gift, we can now rule and reign as a king over all sin.

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