PLEASE READ: 1 John 1:7-9
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
There is a story that one night the Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, went to sleep troubled about his own sin. In a dream, he saw an angel standing by a chalkboard and at the top of the board was Luther’s name. The angel, chalk in hand, was listing all of Luther’s sins, and the list filled that chalkboard.
Luther shuddered in despair, feeling that his sins were so many that he could never be forgiven. But suddenly in his dream he saw a wounded hand writing above the list of sins these words: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). As Luther gazed in amazement, blood flowed from the wounded hand and washed the chalkboard clean.
ISN’T THAT A GREAT STORY?
Doesn’t that give us hope and confidence as we go through the day? In Jesus Christ, God did for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Scripture tells us that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In other words, when God looks at the cross He sees our sins, when God looks at us as we come to faith in Christ, He sees the righteousness of Jesus! Doesn’t that just motivate us to sing with the hymn writer, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!”
As Jesus hung dying on the cross, He carried every sin, from the smallest to the greatest, and took on Himself the punishment that we deserve while we received the righteousness which was His.
- The Apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
- The Apostle John writes in 1 John 3:5, “But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins.”
- In John 3:17 he writes, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.“
Jesus died to set us apart; to make us holy; to make us God’s saints; to set us apart to live like Him in this world. Think of it; if we have received Christ as our Savior and Lord, our sins, like those of Martin Luther have been forgiven! Thanks be to God! May our lives reflect that forgiveness in every area of our life.
Shalom,
Pastor Jim
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