God, Grace, and His Forgiveness of Sin

[newton3005]

Nobody knows to whom God will confer His Grace. We seem to have a general idea, but one’s general idea may be different in some ways than another’s. All we know for sure is what Proverbs 3:5 says, which is to trust in God with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

God’s forgiveness of our sins is a function of His Grace. There is a good chance that He will forgive the sins of a person who acknowledges Him. Did not God, through Jesus, forgive the sins of the condemned man on the cross next to Jesus when he acknowledged God’s existence? And did not Jesus then tell the condemned man in Luke 23:43 “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise?”

Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets, meaning he is what the Law and the prophets want us to be. The rest of us can never hope to be in absolute fulfillment of such, but Jesus makes it a bit easier for us by saying they can be summed up in two commandments: That we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Even so, we who are not in the company of God as Lord Jesus is, are prone to the sins of the world. These include sins we know we committed and sins we committed that we weren’t aware of. No matter how much we ingrain the Scriptures into us, we will still commit some sin.

So, I tell you, if God’s criteria of conferring Grace on us includes our not sinning, then nobody will have His Grace—until we ask God to cleanse our souls of our sins. Even then, being the mortals we are, chances are we will commit another sin. For instance we may ask God forgiveness of a sin, and He in His Grace may forgive us, and we walk on happy until we, say, reach the home of our parents and our father does something that makes us angry at him enough to show our disrespect for him. Is it not a sin to show disrespect to out parents? Does the Commandment of the Old Law to honor our father and our mother, which, through Jesus’ two great commandments, not remain with us?

So, we ask God for his forgiveness in showing disrespect to our parents, and in His Grace he may cleanse our souls of sin yet again. And if we ask God for forgiveness right before our deaths in the flesh, our souls may be cleansed for entry into His House. And as Jesus says in Matthew 18:21-22 to forgive others “seventy times seven” times, and as we were created in God’s image, God in his Grace may forgive us at least seventy times seven as well.

So, I tell you that God’s Grace is conferred on those whose souls He has cleansed. Here is parable if you will: One summer day a child plays in his yard after a rainstorm and gets himself covered in mud. He becomes hungry and he hears his mother saying, “Dinner is being served.” He goes to the door of his house, rings the doorbell, and his mother notices him covered in mud. His mother says to him he cannot come into the house unless he is cleaned. So, he asks his mother to clean him, and she does so with a garden hose. Then, out of her own grace, she allows him to come in for dinner. As his mother, out of her grace, admits her son into the house after she cleansed him, so we may have faith that God, out of His Grace, will admit us into His House after He’s cleansed out souls.

 

[Phil W]

Nobody knows to whom God will confer His Grace. We seem to have a general idea, but one’s general idea may be different in some ways than another’s. All we know for sure is what Proverbs 3:5 says, which is to trust in God with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

God’s forgiveness of our sins is a function of His Grace. There is a good chance that He will forgive the sins of a person who acknowledges Him. Did not God, through Jesus, forgive the sins of the condemned man on the cross next to Jesus when he acknowledged God’s existence? And did not Jesus then tell the condemned man in Luke 23:43 “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise?”

Lord Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets, meaning he is what the Law and the prophets want us to be. The rest of us can never hope to be in absolute fulfillment of such, but Jesus makes it a bit easier for us by saying they can be summed up in two commandments: That we love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and we love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Even so, we who are not in the company of God as Lord Jesus is, are prone to the sins of the world. These include sins we know we committed and sins we committed that we weren’t aware of. No matter how much we ingrain the Scriptures into us, we will still commit some sin.

So, I tell you, if God’s criteria of conferring Grace on us includes our not sinning, then nobody will have His Grace—until we ask God to cleanse our souls of our sins. Even then, being the mortals we are, chances are we will commit another sin. For instance we may ask God forgiveness of a sin, and He in His Grace may forgive us, and we walk on happy until we, say, reach the home of our parents and our father does something that makes us angry at him enough to show our disrespect for him. Is it not a sin to show disrespect to out parents? Does the Commandment of the Old Law to honor our father and our mother, which, through Jesus’ two great commandments, not remain with us?

So, we ask God for his forgiveness in showing disrespect to our parents, and in His Grace he may cleanse our souls of sin yet again. And if we ask God for forgiveness right before our deaths in the flesh, our souls may be cleansed for entry into His House. And as Jesus says in Matthew 18:21-22 to forgive others “seventy times seven” times, and as we were created in God’s image, God in his Grace may forgive us at least seventy times seven as well.

So, I tell you that God’s Grace is conferred on those whose souls He has cleansed. Here is parable if you will: One summer day a child plays in his yard after a rainstorm and gets himself covered in mud. He becomes hungry and he hears his mother saying, “Dinner is being served.” He goes to the door of his house, rings the doorbell, and his mother notices him covered in mud. His mother says to him he cannot come into the house unless he is cleaned. So, he asks his mother to clean him, and she does so with a garden hose. Then, out of her own grace, she allows him to come in for dinner. As his mother, out of her grace, admits her son into the house after she cleansed him, so we may have faith that God, out of His Grace, will admit us into His House after He’s cleansed out souls.

I was saddened to read you were a "mere mortal".
I am a new creature, gendered from the seed of God.
His grace was not wasted on me, as it seems to be on all those who have chosen to serve sin instead of serving God.