YOU ARE FORGIVEN -- BECAUSE OF JESUS CHRIST! Repent and be Forgiven by God!
REPENTANCE is an important part of a healthy prayer life. When you honestly repent of your sins, God forgives you and takes your sins as far from you "as the East is from the West"-Pslam 103).
Nothing you have done is beyond God's ability to forgive you. The devil wants you to wallow in guilt and run from God and the other ones you who love you. God wants to forgive you and truly set you free to love and be loved, to focus on the ones God has given you to love most fully in your family and your church family. God's forgiveness is a wonderful thing! But sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Pray that God might help you with forgiving yourself.
"For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God" (1 Peter 3:18). "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace" (Ephesians 1:7).
God's Forgiveness is a Wonderful Thing - He Paid the Price Himself
God hates sin, but He loves the sinner. The price for God's forgiveness is high, but He paid the price Himself. By Christ's loving act of grace, believers are eternally freed from the penalty and guilt of sin. Once we're covered by the Blood of Christ, God doesn't keep a record of our sins. Our forgiveness is total and complete.
"Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, who sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord doesn't count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit" (Psalm 32:1-2).
"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25).
"It is possible for the Lord to look at us without seeing our sins because when he forgave us, he removed our sins as far as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103:12).
So turn from you sin -- do not embrace it anymore. Cease and desist. And ask God to forgive you. Truly repent and be forgiven.
A believer receives God's forgiveness when he repents of sin and places his faith in Jesus Christ for salvation -- all of his sins are forgiven forever. That includes past, present and future, big or small. Jesus died to pay the penalty for all of our sins, and once they are forgiven, they are all forgiven (Colossians 1:14; Acts 10:43). However, when we stumble, we are called to confess our sins - "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Yes, Christians do sin (1 John 1:8) - but the Christian life is not to be identified by a life of sin. Believers are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have the Holy Spirit in us producing good fruit (Galatians 5:22-23). A Christian life should be a changed life. A person who claims to be a believer yet continually lives a life that says otherwise should question the genuineness of his faith. Christians are forgiven no matter how many times they sin, but at the same time, Christians should live a progressively more holy life as they grow closer to Christ.
Christians continue to sin after they are saved - we will not be free from sin until we die or Jesus comes back. However, becoming a Christian results in a changed life (2 Corinthians 5:17). A person will go from producing the acts of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) to producing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). This change does not happen instantly, but it does happen over time. Paul tells us, "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11).
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