“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.” (Romans 4:7-8; Psalm 32:1-2)

It is such a comfort to hear someone say, “you’re forgiven,” when you have messed up in a big way toward them, and they really mean it. How it must have felt to the crippled man, when Jesus said “you’re forgiven.” At that point the man and his friends must have wondered, we came for a healing and Jesus said, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” (Matthew 9:2) This answer caused a debate with the teachers of the law, who were ready to charge Jesus with blasphemy, because only God can forgive sins. Jesus’ answer was, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’ So, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Get up, take your mat and go home.’ Then the man got up and went home.” (Matthew 9:5-7) While he went away healed, he also, went home with a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and what He came to do.

Peter also understood what it was like to sin against Jesus Himself, when he denied Him three times, as Jesus said he would. He also understood what it was to be forgiven. In his first letter, he would write, “’He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’” (1 Peter 2:24) He knew that Jesus took upon Himself all the sin and the sins of mankind not only to forgive us but to restore us and give us His righteousness. Paul would add, “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)

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are learning how to live in His righteousness while being in a sinful world, and still struggling with our old sinful nature. Paul addresses this challenge, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:19-20) However, as God moves us from our sin to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we are transformed. “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Roman 7:25-8:4) We are to live daily in the forgiveness of God and grow as we live in the righteousness given to us by Jesus.

How do we learn how to live as forgiven and given righteousness? We learn as we follow Jesus. John would say, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. . .. I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.” (1 John 2:1-2,12) Jesus is the one who would tell us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

When we walk with the Living Word of God, we learn to live a life filled with forgiveness and a life that is being transformed in order to show the hope and the promise which being forgiven brings.

In the Love of Jesus,

Michael Block