Everything we have ever done wrong, everything we are getting wrong this very moment, and everything that we will ever do wrong, is forgiven us when we turn to Jesus and declare Him Lord. God’s forgiveness is an amazing grace gift to us! Walking in forgiveness is choosing to accept this truth, and to live lives that are in the good of it! 

Sometimes it’s easy to get into a spiral of forgetting that we are forgiven. I’ve found that forgetting we’re forgiven, if left for a long time, can make us get distant from God; not that He’s moved, only that we’ve let other things come between us and Him, intentionally or gradually. When we forget that God forgives us, we might start to wonder why we are Christians at all when we keep getting it wrong. When this mind-shift happens, we are no longer living in the forgiveness of God (even though we are still forgiven and justified, we’re just not living in the good of it!).

Confessing our sins to God and seeking His forgiveness afresh is a great way to restore our relationship with God and to remain in the goodness of forgiveness. We can do this on the odd occasion, or instead, keep a short account with God. I prefer the latter. I’ve done both, and as great as the weight off the shoulders is when it’s been a while, I much prefer to have a short account with God and seek to remain in the place of remembering that I’m forgiven. This helps me to live peacefully and in step with the Holy Spirit, the place of greatest anointing! (As R.T.Kendall puts it)

So perhaps this weekend, take some time to pray through something you need to bring to God and seek forgiveness for? Here’s the prayer outline I used last week that you might like to use as a tool:

Confess – tell God what you did
Repent – choose to turn away from that sin, say you want nothing more to do with it
Seek – seek forgiveness from God
Receive – thank God that He is faithful to forgive us when we confess our sin
Ask – ask God to help you walk with Him from here on in.

I find this helpful sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes!

Next month I’ll be preaching about forgiving others. Not an easy thing for us to walk in, but so healing in the life of a disciple.

With love

Craig