Finding peace through forgiveness
Romans 4:25 “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
How easily we take for granted and even gloss over the foundation of our Christian faith – that Jesus died and rose to give us forgiveness and the hope of heaven!
To help us realize how wonderful a gift it is and to appreciate what we have in Jesus, picture yourself standing in a courtroom because you have to face the charges of all the sins you have ever committed in your life.
As you walk into the courtroom there is a video screen with a list of all the sins you have ever committed. You feel like fainting in hopelessness as you are overwhelmed with all the things you’ve done wrong and all the things you’ve failed to do. Sitting in the judge’s chair is God the Father. He sternly and solemnly asks you how you plead to the list on the video screen.
You know how you need to plead and you start to open your mouth to utter the guilty plea, but before you do, Jesus walks up by your side and says to God the Father, “I’ll handle this”. He flips the picture on the video screen to 2 pictures which you know very well. On the left is a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross and on the right is a picture of Jesus standing in front of the open tomb on Easter morning. Jesus points to the 2 pictures and then says to God the Father: “Based on what I have done in those 2 events which you know well, I ask that you forgive this person all their sins, declare them not guilty and on top of that I want to give them the free gift of heaven and the promise that I will walk with this individual the rest of their earthly life and help and support them until you decide it’s time for them to go to heaven”.
That whole picture may seem a little corny or unreal, but if you look at the last word of our verse for this week, that is what is all captured in that word “justification”.
Stop and ponder for a moment what was described in that courtroom scene above. In a sense that is what happens each time you go to God and ask for forgiveness for your sins. We don’t know if there is an actual conversation between Jesus and God the Father, but we are assured that when we ask for forgiveness in full assurance of faith in Jesus as our Savior, God doesn’t see the ugly, hateful, unloving things we have thought, said or done. All he sees is Jesus’ payment for each one of those sins with his innocent, agonizing death on the cross.
As you think about that, how easily we take for granted what it took to win our forgiveness. But, when we do sincerely ponder this, what relief, joy and peace we have knowing that Jesus has paid for every last one of those sins and wants us to have true joy and peace knowing that we can live in a loving relationship with God!
I’d also like you to think about all this in another way. Is there someone in your life or someone whose life intersects with yours who doesn’t have the knowledge which you do of the assurance, confidence and peace of the forgiveness of their sins? You could use the picture above or some clear simple words of the Bible and help lift the burden of sin off of their shoulders and let them live in the peace which you have.
Friends, please treasure the wonderful gift you have in the forgiveness of sins and also share that gift with others!