Ours is a great nation because it has been built upon the
principles of Scripture. The opening words of the Declaration of Independence
declare that they held “these truths to be self-evident: That all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” Our
nation’s forefather’s found that Scripture spoke about freedom and they foresaw
America to be a place where freedom would be the foundation of everything they
sought to do.
Even with this as a foundation for our country, there is one
freedom that America cannot give its citizens. In fact, no government on the
face of the earth can supply the freedom that Jesus talked about in John 8.
Verses: 31 – 36: To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus
said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then
you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered
him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have
never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?" Jesus
replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a
slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
One of the most difficult things we struggle with is guilt
and shame. No matter how many freedoms our nation gives us, it cannot give us
the freedom from the shame and guilt imposed upon us by our sins. Sin has a
terrible ability to dominate our lives. Drag us down and to destroy us.
Romans 6:17 puts it: “…you used to be slaves to sin….
Keyword: “Used to”.
For me, there USED TO be a nagging question…”How could God
ever forgive me?”
There is a word that has become quite popular in our culture
that describes it. That word is “Karma.” Every world religion is based upon
that fundamental idea. Galatians 6:7 says “Do not be deceived: God cannot be
mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” You get what you deserve. Other world
religions teach that you can work off your “bad Karma”. They teach that you
really can do enough good to outweigh the bad.
There are a couple of issues with this mindset:
1.
If you end up doing too many “bad” things in
your life… you may never be able to balance out.
2.
Karma never really “removes” any of the sin from
a person’s life. Karma teaches that when you’ve put bad deeds on one side of
the scale you have to put good ones on the other side.
Things will get so heavy they will break. That is what can
happen to people who rely too heavily on balancing the spiritual scales of
their lives. There becomes too much weight for the scales of their conscience
to handle, and this can literally cripple them mentally.
God will forgive us our sins – not because we deserve it, or
have done enough good to outweigh our sins. God will forgive us for only one
reason: He loves us.
Here’s another nagging question I USED TO have: “How many times
will God forgive me when I sin?”
Peter once asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive
someone else. And do you remember what Jesus answered? 70 times 7 … 490 times. Do
you realize that by the time we forgave somebody that many times, we’d probably
forget what they’d done to offend us the first time? If God holds us to that
standard in our lives, don’t you think God Himself would hold Himself to a much
higher standard when it came to our sins?
One the reasons people don’t confess their sins to God is
that they believe that once God “finds out” what they’d done, God wouldn’t
forgive them. That’s just foolish – there isn’t anything God doesn’t see or hear.
You can’t HIDE your sin from God. All we lose, by not confessing our sins to
Him, is the freedom He can give us from the shackles of shame and guilt that
come from those sins.
When I was younger, a friend and I were throwing rocks
outside of school. I threw a rock at a cat and killed it. I felt bad I had no
idea whose cat it was and my friend knew about how I felt. For the next few
weeks whenever he wanted something from me, he would threaten me with telling
others about the cat. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and confessed all to
the Principal at my school. Funny, he said he saw the whole thing but had
forgiven me already. He hadn’t said anything because he wanted to see how long
I’d allow my friend to make a slave of me…
I thought my confession would destroy me, but it was the
confession that actually set me free.
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