IT IS DECEMBER! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? CHRISTMAS IS COMING—FAST! I hope you have all of your Christmas shopping done by now, so you can concentrate of the true meaning of this season (dream on, right?) Anyway, maybe you can give someone you love (or are trying to love) a copy of these “Benefits & Blessings of Being a Participant of the New Covenant” and strike at least one name off your list. I can promise you that you will get a response; maybe not a “thank-you-note” but at least a response (reaction is probably the better word).
As I said last week, one would think that the message of the New Covenant—the covenant of grace—would be so attractive to God’s people that they would be willing to stand in line overnight in the cold rain to hear about it; however, that is, simply, not the case. For reasons beyond anything I can comprehend, most Christians are far more attracted to the Law and to its requirements than they are to the New Covenant and the benefits and blessings it brings. Go figure! On to benefit #2!
Living in a Continued State of Forgiveness
Need No Longer Be a Concern for You!
Living in a continued state of forgiveness need no longer be a concern for you because God has chosen to make you perfect—forever perfect, as is evidenced by this: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every Priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Hebrews 10: 10-14; emphasis mine).
In other words, because of the death of Jesus, the once-for-all-time-death—the offering of the body of Christ as a sacrifice for sin—the penalty for every sin you will commit during your entire lifetime has been paid in full. As a result, you are holy and perfect; consequently, forever forgiven. Granted this might sound a bit strange to your ears; however, please do not allow what seems a bit strange to cause you to throw the baby out with the bath water.
We have been well-trained by the religious that our living in a continued state of forgiveness before God is up to us. Somehow, we have been led to believe that our sin-debt still belongs to us; consequently, we must be constantly doing whatever might be necessary to convince God that we are seriously repentant and sorry for our sins. The truth is most of us think that the degree of our sincerity determines to a large extent whether or not God will forgive us. There is a Greek word for this belief system—hogwash! Of course, we understand the English term much better—heresy!
Anyway, Jesus died because He knew that we could never earn God’s forgiveness; thankfully, He earned it for us by doing the wildest thing—paying the penalty for our sins! Surely, you understand that when a debt is paid, it is also forgiven—this is what “paid-in-full” means, for Pete’s sake. Once you pay off a debt, no one can ever come against you for that debt—ever! Forgiveness is so sweet, especially when you cannot pay and someone does it for you!
Why don’t you just go ahead and life as if your entire sin-debt has been paid in full? It has, if you are His, so you might as well enjoy your freedom. Now you know why debt is often called MORTgage!
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