To be forgiven

Today's readings

"If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence or blight or mildew or locust or caterpillar, if their enemies besiege them in the land at their gates, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is, whatever prayer, whatever plea is made by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction and his own sorrow and stretching out his hands toward this house, then hear from heaven your dwelling place and forgive and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways, for you, you only, know the hearts of the children of mankind, that they may fear you and walk in your ways all the days that they live in the land that you gave to our fathers." 2 Chron 6:28 -31

This is an amazing amount of theology (and for me comfort) packed into these few verses. When trouble comes our first response should be to turn to the Lord. It is He and He only who will be able to save us. That can be an immediate salvation or, and this is the harder part, the ultimate salvation which we do not see yet but in which we trust. This is followed by the idea that the Lord and the Lord only truly knows our hearts. We do not even fully understand our own hearts because the veil of our sinful desires keeps us from seeing clearly, even the very sins with which we struggle. But He does and Praise be to His Name that He does. If He did not then there would be no salvation, no way out for us. We would be eternally lost for we cannot save ourselves any more than a dead body can rise up and cook dinner.

"Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. "

The Lord then appears to Solomon and utters what may be the most hopeful and comforting passage in the entire Bible. If we turn our face to God's and ask for forgiveness He is faithful and merciful to forgive us. The key is our action. We must be willing to humble ourselves and confess our sins to Him. It is not simply enough to consider ourselves Christian. Forgiveness is an act of will on our parts in laying our sins at the foot of the Cross and and act of Grace on His part to forgive us for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ.

"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. "

Paul puts it accurately here. We sin because that is our very nature. It is this nature that we need to actively lay down before God to receive forgiveness. We are not forgiven if we brazenly tell God to forgive us without expressing remorse at our actions.

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

But the Good News is that we do not have to struggle in vain. We have a Savior who was willing to die for us that we might walk again in peace with God. We walk now according to the Spirit and have the ability to lay down the very sins that kept us at war with God. There can be no greater news! There is no greater God and all glory and honor is His! May God richly bless us this day.