"Remember!"

I want to look over the subject of remembering. Remembrance comes up in many portions of the Bible and we need to have a basic understanding of what remembering means.

Lets start with the idea that you must forgive and forget. On the surface, it sounds as though there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with suggesting that we must forgive and forget when it come to offenses committed against us. After all, isn’t forgiveness “the Christian way”? How could anybody dispute that idea?

But will we forget the wrong done to us? Of course not! It would be ridiculous to think that the Bible teaches us that we have to have amnesia regarding certain experiences in our lives. Forgiving someone may mean a lot of things, but it certainly doesn’t mean that we literally forget what has happened. Not even God does that!

Wait a minute, you say! Doesn’t the Bible say that God forgives our sins and forgets them? No. It says that He doesn’t remember them. Although many think the two are the same thing, they aren’t.

To forget means just that. It means that God would have no ability to bring to mind the forgotten thing. Do you really want to limit God like that? He just doesn’t REMEMBER our sins.

What does it mean to remember? Look at the word itself. It is composed of two parts: re- and member. Re- is a prefix that means “to return to a previous condition” or “the repetition of a previous action.” The word member means “one of a group; one that belongs, a part of the body.” So the accurate and literal meaning of the word “remember’ is to return something to a previous condition by making it belong to or join again with something. If I cut off my finger, the doctor may be able to re-member it if I get it to him in time.

What the Bible says is that God separates our sins from us forever. He doesn’t forget, but He does remember them no more. He will forever refuse to join our sins to us or our past guilt to Himself. He will not re-member them!

Now back to OUR forgiving and forgetting of someone else. Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is an intentional choice to release a person from all obligation they may have toward me as a result of any offense they have committed against me.

Why do we forgive? It’s not primarily for the sake of the other person, but for our own sake. In Isaiah 43:5, God said, “I even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake.” It is the nature of our loving God to forgive, and that’s why He has done it. You could replace the words “for My own sake” with “because it’s just my nature to do it”. God would have been inconsistent if He hadn’t forgiven you. After all, He is a forgiving God by nature.

Christ and His nature live in us now as Christians (see 2 Peter 1:4). We forgive others because His nature is within us and to do any less is to act in a way that is contrary to our authentic selves. We forgive for our own sakes so that we won’t be poisoned by bitterness that grows in the absence of forgiveness.

Let’s talk now about that familiar passage which we hear so often when we receive Communion.

“The Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way He took the cup also after supper saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25).

What did He mean by that? He meant, “As often as you partake of this communion meal in the future, do it in a way that you are appropriating the reality of your connection to Me.” He wasn’t telling believers that when we take communion, we are to think in our minds and pretend that we are there watching His crucifixion. He is telling us to re-member. We are to affirm by faith that we are inseparably joined to Him, and we affirm that reality again and again when we partake of the elements.

Some would have us reflect on or re-member our sinfulness at communion time. Although past sins may flash into our mind at communion time, we are not to re-member them! We are not to try to re-attach them to ourselves. Our old nature of sin have been thrown out and replaced with the divine nature of God in Christ. Communions should be a joyous time of re-membering who we are in union with Christ within us – not a sober time of sin reflection.

In conclusion, don’t set an impossible goal for yourself to forgive and forget. Your Father doesn’t expect that of you. Just do as God does: He forgives and then doesn’t re-member anymore! Make the choice from within your divine nature in Christ not to attempt to bring the offense up again. It will allow you to get on with your life in a way that you’re not contaminated in your attitude, mood, or perspective because of the past. That’s a good reason to do it.

Most importantly, it will allow you to act in a way that is consistent with who you truly are – a child of God whose desire is to honor your Father by giving to others the same forgiveness that you have received from Him. That’s the BEST reason to do it.

And at the communion table, joyously re-member your union with Jesus Christ who is forever joined to your human spirit. In the trenches of our human life, our thoughts may be temporarily drawn away from who we really are. But God will never really let us FORGET this and will bring us back into RE-MEMBRANCE.

"Forgive Us Our Sins!" Part One

Do we need to continually ask God to forgive our sins? The idea that we need to ask God to forgive our sins daily (or even more often) is so ingrained and taken for granted that people look at you as if you were an out-of-your-mind heretic for even questioning it. It is considered self-evident in the modern church. But it’s not at all what the Bible teaches.

“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” said John the Baptist (John 1:29). The Lamb of God came to do what? Did John really believe that Jesus came to do that? Do you? Did He succeed?

The New Testament consistently teaches that Jesus Christ came to take way our sin. Do you accept that? The Bible says that the problem of sin has been completely dealt with by Christ’s death on the cross.

Following Jesus’ death and resurrection, forgiveness of sins is announced as a done deal. Notice how Paul preached the gospel to a synagogue of people who were hearing of Christ for the first time: “Let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses” (Acts 13:38-39). Did Paul proclaim that their sins COULD be forgiven? No, the gospel is that their sins WERE forgiven, and their only need was to believe the good news! The potential for having their sins forgiven was present in the Old Testament sacrifices, but they could never be permanently freed under the Law of Moses. However, through Jesus Christ we can believe that we are forever freed from our sins because He is the perfect sacrifice.

Today, Christ lives in the Christian in a living union and we are now totally forgiven – not occasionally, not sometimes, not IF we do something. Forgiveness is simply found in Him.

Ephesians 1:7 says that “In Him…we have the forgiveness of our sins…” Colossians 1:14 says “…we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins…”. These are examples of the New Testament’s constant teaching. Why would people struggle to accept it? Mainly it’s because of two objections those who resist this good news typically raise.

One is this petition from the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). The answer to this objection is to take a look at the context of that prayer. Jesus taught this prayer before His own death and resurrection. That fact can’t be stressed too much. When we study the Bible, it’s not only important to consider what was said, but also WHO said it and WHEN it was said.

The Bible is clear that the new covenant didn’t begin until the death of Jesus. So when Jesus spoke those words, which covenant was He speaking under? The old covenant, of course. While Jesus was full of grace in His dealings with people, His teaching existed within the context of the old covenant. If we fail to recognize that fact when we read the Scriptures, we will be filled with confusion about what He said at times.

In the same context where Jesus taught the disciples the “model prayer”, He also talked about how that if you don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive you. Do you apply that one to your life personally NOW? Based on that statement, anybody who remains unforgiving toward someone else is not forgiven by God at this very moment. I wonder how many Christians who have trusted Christ and profess to be forgiven by Him are withholding any degree of forgiveness toward any other person in the world. It’s food for thought, to say the least. We’d better hope we’re completely forgiven now (and we are), or a lot of people who profess to be believers are in reality in deep trouble.

The second major objection about the complete forgiveness truth comes from the way many people understand 1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Let’s begin with an elementary and obvious fact. If you believe that this verse teaches you have to continually ask God to forgive your sins, then you are interpreting that verse in a way that contradicts what all of the rest of the New Testament has to say. There are dozens of verses that clearly teach the results of Christ’s finished work on the cross, and how we are forgiven.

There is a clear answer that explains the confusion about 1 John 1:9. John was writing to a church containing both believers and unbelievers. False teachers who were bringing ideas contradictory to our faith were also infiltrating this church. They were later known as the Gnostics, people who were confusing the Christians about what constituted sin among them.

John indicates the problem when he writes, “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you” (1 John 2:26).

What does it all mean then? Do we just ignore the times we sin? Am I suggesting that sin doesn’t matter? Of course not! It’s the nature of the person who follows Jesus to acknowledge when we sin. The important thing is to realize that when we do, we should admit it before the Lord. We don’t do it IN ORDER TO BE FORGIVEN. We do it BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN!

Don’t get bogged down in a faulty understanding of 1 John 1:9 when the rest of the New Testament teaches that our sins have been absolutely forgiven – past, present, and future. Here is the key:

Confessing your sin will bring an experiential awareness of forgiveness, but it isn’t confession that brings forgiveness. The work of Jesus Christ on the cross did that! If you believe you have to constantly ask God to forgive your sins, you’re believing a lie that will keep you in bondage. You will be sin-conscious all the time. But if you believe that all of your sins have been wiped out and carried away by the finished work of Christ, you will live focused on Jesus Christ within you and the truth that you are already 100 percent totally forgiven. And THAT is a truth that will set you free!

"Forgive Us Our Sins!" Part Two

Do we need to focus on overcoming our sins? One could easily come to that conclusion based on the widespread popularity of the topic in popular Christian books, sermons, and Bible studies. Sin management often seems to be the reason for public ministry.

Overcoming sinful actions in life constitutes the thoughts and energy of many sincere Christians. They are completely dedicated to stopping the wrong things they do and replacing them with actions that glorify God. Their motives are certainly pure but their goal and focus is completely misguided.

Scripture does not call us to direct our attention toward our sins and exert our energy on eliminating them. In fact, this approach will not only be ineffective in reducing sinful actions but will also increase wrong behavior in our lifestyles. The Bible teaches that we shouldn’t focus on sins at all. Instead, we should give Jesus Christ our undivided attention.

If we fixate on what we do wrong and try to figure out how to conquer the bad behavior, we will always come up with some sort of plan that involves our own willpower and determination. When that happens, it doesn’t matter how sincere we might be. We are setting ourselves up to fail. And even when we ask for God’s help, He will not help us with OUR method. He will let us fail until we  come to the place where we are willing to learn and accept HIS answer concerning our sinful actions.

Any approach we take in overcoming our own sins through self-discipline is legalistic because it stirs up within us the false hope that there is something WE can do to defeat it. Jesus Christ within us has already defeated sin. When we try to do what He has already accomplished, we are then denying the sufficiency of His grace and are attempting to utilize a legalistic method to do it ourselves.

Legalistic attempts to overcome sins by self-imposed rules and self-determination are to sins what gasoline is to flames. It won’t stop them – it will only make matters worse. Jesus defeated sin once and for all. Transformation comes to our lifestyle when we simply believe that reality and stop trying to do something that He has already done.

 The book of Hebrews points out that the Old Testament sacrifices of the priests were ineffective in perfectly freeing the people from their sins. Hebrews 10:3 tells us that IF the Old Testament sacrifices had permanently dealt with the sins of the people, they would have stopped focusing on sins completely. They would “no longer have consciousness of sins.” Why? It’s because there would have been no need to focus on something that had been permanently and perfectly put away.

That’s exactly what Jesus did when He offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He dealt with every sin we would ever commit in our lifetimes and even crucified the old self which caused us to want to sin in the first place. Jesus rolled out a new covenant under which our sins would be put away and we would never have to FOCUS on them again!

The lie that we need to focus on overcoming our sins is so very dangerous because it takes our eyes off Jesus within us and puts them on our sins and an imaginary ability we think we have to solve the matter ourselves.

If it seems to you that I’m minimizing sin here, I ask you to consider this possibility: I’m not the one who is minimizing sin. Instead, the people who teach that we need to focus on overcoming our sins are the ones who minimize sins. Their teaching suggests that sin is so weak that it can be overcome by religious self-discipline.

Only one person could effectively deal with your sins, and He did – perfectly and completely. You don’t have to tiptoe through life worried that you’re going to step on a land mine of temptation and be destroyed by sin. You can run with carefree abandon through the fields of grace, knowing that your Father has swept the field for you already. It is His responsibility to see that you make it through life without being destroyed by sin.

If you fall down, He will pick you up, dust you off, and set you back on your course again. With assurance of that reality, you never have to focus on sins again. Just focus on Jesus living in you and united to you forever. And as you do, you’ll be amazed at the way sinful inclinations and temptations lose their power over you.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace.”

There’s nothing else in life so worthy of your gaze or so effective in causing you to live your life the way God intends.

Is Salvation: "Giving Your Life To Christ"?

At first glance, you may wonder how there could be anything at all wrong with the idea of “giving your life to Christ”. After all, it’s repeated from thousands of pulpits.

I propose that salvation is not a matter of you giving your life to Christ. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with what you have given God. Grace revolves around what He has given us, not what we give to Him! You receive eternal life not because you gave your life to Christ. You receive eternal life because He gave you His Life! The distinction might seem subtle, but it’s important.

It is the nature of the religious perspective to focus on what we do instead of what our gracious God has done. Religionists like to think that when they behave in a certain way, God reacts to them.

Now before I go further, let me give you a quick explanation of what I mean when I write about “religion”. I have in mind the system of living by which human beings try to make themselves acceptable to God through their own actions.

I realize that the apostle James used the word positively (see James 1:26-27), but as happens with many words over time, religion has come to mean something very different now than it did in James’ time.

The English word comes from the Latin religare, a word that actually meant “to bind fast” or “restrain”. Originally, religion referred to people being bound together by shared beliefs, or being bound by a particular set of moral obligations.

Today, religion almost universally refers to a set of behavioral standards derived from a person’s religious beliefs. This contemporary use of the word is the kind of religion that I’m criticizing in my observations.

I said before that religious people like to think that they can control God by their actions – that they can make God react to them. However, the truth is that the sovereign God of the universe doesn’t react to man to cause our salvation (or anything else, for that matter). He’s not sitting there on His throne hoping with all His might that we will be so kind as to invite Him into our lives. That’s the kind of religious foolishness I believed for many years (and many believer now).

WE DIDN’T START THE BALL ROLLING REGARDING OUR SALVATION – GOD DID! To suggest otherwise diminishes Him and exalts us.

Salvation is God’s work. Our response to Him is because He initiated the whole thing. We love because He first loved us. Grace means we are merely recipients of what He did through Jesus Christ. He is the initiator, activator and perpetuator of our salvation, from start to finish. We contributed nothing toward our salvation. After all, we had nothing to contribute.

I know you may think you’re a Christian because you made a decision for Christ. I thought that too – for a long time. I decided for Jesus. I asked Him into my life. It sounds noble, doesn’t it? The reality, however, is that nothing could be further from the truth!

Read John 3:16. Read 2 Corinthians 5:19. Read 1 John 4:10. Do you see the consistent theme? It’s not about us. It’s about Him and what He has done because of His love for us. The gospel has nothing to do with mankind reaching up to God to give Him anything. It’s about the Godhead, moved by love, compassion, and mercy, reaching down to us and providing a salvation we could never have accomplished on our own. The Son came to give us salvation. There’s nothing for us to do except believe it and say, “Thank You very much!”

Consider what Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).

We don’t deserve, earn or work for salvation. We simply come to experience it through faith. And Paul says that we can’t even take credit for the faith, for it too “is a gift of God” and not something that we work up by our own resolve.

My intention is not to plant doubt in the minds of people who’ve been taught that they became Christians through giving their lives to God. To the contrary, I want you to see that before you ever wanted Him, He wanted you! I suspect that many – if not most – of us didn’t clearly understand all that happened when we began to follow Christ. That’s OK, thought, because He has it all under control. He knows the truth, and we can catch up in our understanding, as we are able.

I wonder if any of us understood how wonderful salvation really is when we first began to follow Jesus. We can be grateful that salvation doesn’t require perfect understanding on our part. God is looking for sincere hearts, not perfect heads. Wrongheadedness on the subject may have caused us to think that becoming a Christian means we give Him our lives, but the reality is just the opposite. HE GIVES US HIS LIFE! That’s a much better arrangement to every way – don’t you agree?

A misunderstanding in this area can keep you from living out your life as intended by your Father. At salvation, Jesus comes to live right within you joined to your human spirit. He will never leave you or forsake you. He has the Life for you to live – just accept it in place of that old flawed human life you were used to.

We are so much better prepared for life when we begin our journey as followers of Christ by giving God all the glory for His work, living humbly and accepting the Life of Christ from within. The bottom line is that we can GIVE Him nothing – even our human lives. GOD GIVES US EVERYTHING! Then our daily lives become a natural extension of the way we began – a true walk of GRACE!