Faith and Acceptance
If have been on this journey with me, taking steps towards Jesus, you might be experiencing some interesting emotions. At this point, your conscience is likely more sensitive than it used to be. This means you are now more aware of the evil of sin, of its power, its guilt, and the great sorrow it brings. You’re probably experiencing you no longer enjoy certain things and some things you flat out hate. So what happens now that you can feel that sin has separated you from God, and you realize that you are in a slave to the power of evil? Sure, you try to change yourself but you soon realize that the more you struggle to escape, the more you become aware of your helplessness.
You have come to the realization that even the “good” you have in your life sprouted from impure motives since your heart is selfish. You almost want to despair as you realize your life has been filled with sin.
You long to be forgiven,
to be cleansed,
to be set free.
You desire to experience harmony with God, likeness to Him.
But what can you do to obtain it?
Peace
What you need is peace, and true peace can only come from Heaven. You are longing for forgiveness from God and peace and love in the soul.
“Money cannot buy it, intellect cannot procure it, wisdom cannot attain to it; you can never hope, by your own efforts, to secure it. But God offers it to you as a gift, “without money and without price.” Isaiah 55:1. It is yours if you will but reach out your hand and grasp it. The Lord says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” Ezekiel 36:26.”
- Steps to Christ p49
The part that is under your control is confessing your sin. Have you confessed your sin? Have you put your sins away in your heart?
Another part that is under your control is your resolve to give yourself fully to God. Have you resolved to give yourself to God? Go to Him, and ask that He will wash away your sins and give you a new heart. Then believe that He does this because He has promised.
This is the big lesson I want you to take away from this post. This is the lesson Jesus taught while He was here on earth! Jesus taught that the gift God promises us is ours when we believe and accept it. Jesus healed the people of their diseases when they had faith in His power. As Jesus helped others with the things they could see, He inspired them to have confidence in Him concerning things they could not see, this would help believe in His power to forgive sins.
“But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
- Matthew 9:6 NKJV
Along the same lines, John stated,
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
- John 20:31 NKJV
Let’s be real here, we are all sinners, and as such we are not able to atone for our past sins. Likewise, you cannot change your heart or make yourself holy. But God promises to do all this for you through Christ. You believe that promise. You confess your sins and give yourself to God. Your will to serve Him. And as you do this, know that God will fulfill His word to you. If you believe the promise,—believe that you are forgiven and cleansed,—God supplies the fact; you are made whole! Remember how Jesus healed the sick when they believed, it is so if you believe it.
Do not wait to feel that you are made whole, but say, “I believe it; it is so, not because I feel it, but because God has promised.”
- Steps to Christ p51
We know that it is the will of God to cleanse us from sin, to make us His children, and to enable us to live a holy life. So we can ask for these blessings and believe that we receive them, and thank God that we have received them.
knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
- 1Peter 1:18-19 NKJVAs you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
- Colossians 2:6 NKJV
Jesus loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful, helpless, dependent, scared, and hurting. We may come with all our weakness, our ignorance, our sinfulness, and humbly fall at His feet full of sorrow for your faults. It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love and to bind up our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity.
When we fail to believe that God forgives us, personally, individually, we are in trouble. Why would we not take God at His word? It is the privilege of all who comply with the conditions to know for themselves that forgiveness is freely extended for every sin. Put away the suspicion that God's promises are not meant for you. They are for every repentant sinner. Strength and grace have been provided through Christ for every believing soul. No one in the world is so sinful that they cannot find strength, purity, and righteousness in Jesus, who died for them. He is waiting to strip them of their garments stained and polluted with sin, and to put upon them the white robes of righteousness; He calls them to live and not die.
For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”
-Ezekiel 18:32 NKJV
Jesus has died that I might live. He loves me, and wills not that I should perish.
Too often I feel like the prodigal son from the story Jesus told. I have a compassionate heavenly Father; and although I have abused His love, though the blessings He has given me have been squandered, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” ’ (Luke 15:18-19 NKJV)
I love the next part of this parable because as Jesus tells this story, the prodigal son “arose and came to his father.”
And now my favorite part!
“But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20 NKJV bold mine)
The son, the sinner, was still a great way off. His life was still messed up. She still smelled of pigs. They were still wearing dirty, ragged, old clothes. The son is me, the son is you. While we are still a great way off, the moment we decide, the moment we realize we want to come back to the Father, He sees us, and has compassion on us, and runs to meet us. That is the God we worship!
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
- 1 John 1:9 NKJV
Want to go deeper? Check out Steps to Christ ch 6.
