Prayer Power To Forgive
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Continually Cleansed from Sin – 1 John 1:7
This morning I ran across something very enlightening to me from 1 John 1:7.
Reading from 1 John, beginning in verse five, This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
Now verse seven is the verse that became enlightening to me: 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
I know I have read that verse over 100 times before, but it did not hit me as it did this morning. And I immediately had to go back and read it again to see if I read and understood it correctly. And yes, I did! The verse says to us that if we walk in the light as He is in the light (that is, if we are Christians), then we have His promise of two things: 1) We have fellowship one with another, and 2) the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
It is this second promise that really hit me—because it has no condition attached to it other than becoming a Christian. What I am saying is that, when I sin I don’t have to do anything to get His forgiveness and His cleansing. It is automatic and certain! Yes, because I am His child and walk in the light I automatically receive His blood cleansing. I don’t even have to worry about whether I remembered to confess my sins or not or whether I repented of my sin or not. No. Just because I am one of His and walk in His light I am cleansed by His blood.
Repeatedly I have been told that if I sin I need to confess it, then to ask God to forgive me in order to be cleansed of my sin. And isn’t that what verse 9 tells us? Well, yes and no. Verse nine, the confession of sins, is something a Christian automatically does. It is in his new nature to repent and feel bad about sin and confess it. In fact, the words “if we confess” should read “if we keep confessing.” MacArthur comments that this “continual confession of sin is an indication of genuine salvation.” It is part of the miracle of the new life God gives us at salvation. It is what every Christian naturally does when he sins.
I really like what John MacArthur says about verse seven.
A genuine Christian walks habitually in the light (truth and holiness), not in the darkness (falsehood and sin). Their walk also results in cleansing from sin as the Lord continually forgives His own. Since those walking in the light share in the character of God, they will be habitually characterized by His holiness, indicating their true fellowship with Him. A genuine Christian does not walk in darkness but only in the light, and cleansing from sin continually occurs.
And this continual cleansing, we could add from verse nine, occurs automatically when we naturally and continually confess out sins whenever we sin. He does the cleansing by His blood.
Hence, we are always walking in the light with Him. We walk together with Him in the light, being cleansed continually by His blood.
According to His Lovingkindness
Reflecting on Psalm 51:1, we see so clearly that the reason why David was so quick to ask God to forgive his great sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah, and ultimately against Him, was because he knew who God was. He knew the greatness of His compassion and love. Too often we linger so long in our sin, thinking that we don’t deserve forgiveness. We may be trying to punish ourselves for a while until we feel more deserving.
But David knew God. He knew the ever-readiness of His compassion. I like the way the NKJV says it:
Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
NKJV
Here it is clear. God’s mercy, and our confession, must be “according to” His lovingkindness, “according to” the multitude of His tender mercies. God is always ready to forgive us. His compassion is always full. Whenever we are ready to ask for His forgiveness. He is ready to give it–in full.
And Forgive Us Our Debts, As We Forgive Our Debtors
Here is the petition that is the most needed to maintain our relationship with God. It is the petition that helps to keep our mind and soul pure so that we can commune with Him in prayer. Hence this petition for daily forgiveness makes it possible to be satisfied with our daily bread, and also makes it probable that He will guide us and deliver us from evil when we ask Him.
The forgiveness that we ask for is according to our debts to God. For God has given us His laws and we have not obeyed them, we have not been righteous as He requires. Thus, because of our sin against God, we owe Him a huge debt of consequence. How can we pay this debt? It is so immense, so gigantic that we will never be able to pay it back. Therefore, all we can do is…
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8 Teachings of Jesus on Prayer — Teaching #8
Jesus taught that prayer must be with forgiveness (Matthew 5:23, 24; 6:14-15; Mark 11:25-26)
In these passages Jesus seems to be teaching us that if we have not forgiven someone we may as well not pray at all. Mark 11:26 says, “If you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Jesus is not saying here that if you don’t forgive others you have lost your salvation; but He is saying that in your unwillingness to forgive someone you have cut off your fellowship with God. Why? Because in your sin against others (in not forgiving them) you sin against God too. Sin always separates us from God, and so this is why when we sin He will not regard our prayers (Ps. 66:18, Jn. 9:31).
Now we know that there are many different kinds of sin, and all of them, if unconfessed will separate us…
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5 Benefits of Forgiving Others
There are so many benefits you can reap when you forgive others. I will put them into five categories:
1. Forgiving others frees us from the consequences of not forgiving. When we forgive we avoid all the consequences we have previously discussed and more.
2. Forgiving others makes healing possible. When we learn to forgive, God forgives us and cleanses us. And through that cleansing process He thoroughly heals us of all the pain that our anger, bitterness and resentment have caused us. Moreover He heals us from disgust and rejection we feel from ourselves (from bad habits) and from others. His cleansing and healing process is so complete that we will feel like a new person (2 Cor. 5:17).
3. Forgiving others leads to the growth of relationships.What not forgiving has done to destroy relationships, forgiveness will do to develop and nurture relationships. And that is…
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Five Reasons Why Forgiving Another Seems So Difficult
1. Pride. Pride I think is the main reason why it’s so hard to forgive. Pride makes it harder for us to trust God. We say to ourselves, I don’t want to forgive, and I don’t have to! And so in our pride we cut off God’s help to us.
2. Fear. Fear also keeps us from His help. We say to ourselves, I’m afraid; forgiveness is too hard. Here again we are not looking to God for help; we are instead looking at our weakness, the giant who hurt us, and the huge problem ahead of us.
So pride and fear I think are the real reasons why forgiveness is so difficult and why we don’t forgive. But I also want to give you three of the reasons (or excuses) we will give as to why forgiveness is too hard for us—so we can take a look…
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Forgiving Yourself
Forgiving yourself is what you will naturally do when you accept and receive God’s forgiveness. When you are forgiven by Him, His forgiveness flows to you and gives you the strength you need to forgive yourself.
The reason why we don’t always forgive ourselves is because we fail to see that God loves us and cares for us and that He really wants to forgive us. And so we fail to truly repent of our sins—thus the guilt of our sins remains with us. Accordingly, because we are unable to trust the sacrifice of Christ for us, we feel the need to punish ourselves, to tell ourselves how dumb and stupid we are, to restrict ourselves from fellowship, and to wallow in our guilt. Some have tried to starve themselves, and to cut themselves; some viciously mutilate themselves. I think one of the more common ways people punish…
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How to Receive and Be Cleansed By God’s Forgiveness
God’s forgiveness is a gift that we receive by faith. Just as we were saved by His grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9), His constant, day by day forgiveness also comes by grace through faith. We can’t earn it by works, nor do we deserve it; we receive it by faith. And the way we begin to have faith in Him is by coming to Him in prayer with a broken and humble heart—to confess our sins and repent. Then when God sees that we are genuine in our repentance, He will freely offer us His gift of forgiveness and cleansing.
But how do we begin to confess and to genuinely turn from our sins? How does this happen? Well, to begin with, God moves in us to change our heart. But then when you feel Him moving you, it is up to you to respond. You must trust Him…
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How to Forgive: 9 Steps to Follow
According to Matthew 5:23-24, the first thing we are to do when we remember that someone has something against us, is to go quickly and make friends with him, even if we are in the middle of prayer. In fact, that is the time that the Holy Spirit will bring it to your mind. And really, it doesn’t matter who the offender is, whether it is another that offended you or you that offended another, you are responsible to go and make reconciliation. Don’t think that he must go to you. When you meet him you must confront him in love. If he has sinned you are to reprove him, but in private (Matt. 18:15). If you have sinned then you must confess to him and ask his forgiveness. If we practice this law of reconciliation then we will live in freedom from the chains of bitterness.
But what if…
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Stephen Nielsen 