Kick Start Question: ALL My Sins Forgiven?
“I am strong in my faith of God and His Son Jesus. However, even though I am baptized and feel washed, how can all of my sins (and I feel I have a lot) be forgiven?”
Anytime I get a question like this, I always recommend the explorer to read Romans chapters 6-8. Reflect on that passage deeply. Listen to the words of the Apostle Paul himself:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
In chapters 6-8 Paul goes on this wild reflective journey on the nature of sin, our actions, and the completed work of Jesus Christ. And this is where he ends up:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (8:1)
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loves us. (8:37)
As hard as it is for us to believe from our seats—namely the seat of our mind that not only remembers all of our sin-full actions, but our sin-full thoughts—the Christian faith makes the radical claim that when you receive the gift of Jesus Christ’s completed work, you are in fact completely and totally forgiven. You are able to stand in Jesus’ righteousness before a perfectly holy God. From our perspective this seems impossible. From God’s perspective, it is already accomplished.
The rest of the Christian journey of life is for us to step more and more into the perfection that God has already imputed to us. The more we accept God’s view of us, the more that we live in the freedom from our sins, and it slowly—but surely—transforms our action to align with God’s Will.
And this is the untold part of the Christian message. We are not only saved from something, we are saved to something. We are more than conquerors! We have, can, and will overcome the world. But we have to be careful here because we have to import the Christian view (not the world’s view) of what being a conqueror is, and that is simply to bring the Love of God into reality.
The key to understanding how all of your sins can be forgiven is place them squarely in the purview of God. We cannot imagine how this is possible. We cannot think of how it can be accomplished. That’s the Good News! Through us it is not possible. We cannot do the work of salvation. But we get to live in the freedom of Jesus’ final words on the cross, “IT IS FINISHED.”
Here’s a video that may be helpful:
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