If you were pushing a grocery cart through a store when you accidently knocked over a large product display, how would you feel? Probably not too pleased with yourself, right? Because of your carelessness you did something that you wish you hadn’t done, and hopefully you would never do again. What would you do the next time that you went into that store? Would you take the experience that you learned in the past and apply it to your future actions by carefully paying attention to where you were going?
Mistakes are things that happen throughout our lives. We forget to pay attention to food on the stove, and it burns. We forget to close the windows on our cars and the rain gets the seats wet. We neglect to tie our shoes and as a result we fall down and cut our knees on the ground. Mistakes.
Sin is a mistake too. It is something that we do wrong. Thankfully we have Jesus to grant us forgiveness whenever we make that mistake and sin, but it is what you do after those mistakes that matters. Will you learn how to not do them anymore and instead do what is right, or will you carelessly do it again?
Romans 6:1-11 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Christ’s forgiveness is there to free you from the weight of your sins, and to make you clean in the sight of God. It is a second chance which you can use to try again next time, with the goal for you to do it right. Some people will need more forgiveness and more opportunities than others, while some may only need it just once before they learn not to sin again. Either way, the Lord offers His forgiveness many, many times, wanting people to repent. “Seventy times seven” Jesus told His disciples to be forgiving, to be filled with mercy and forgiveness.
But even though the Lord is filled with an unlimited amount of grace, that grace should not be used as a crutch to fall onto whenever one feels like it. It is there to be used when we need to be forgiven, not as an excuse to keep on sinning. This is something that many people today do not get. They sin and they tell themselves that they can get forgiveness afterwards, but when they do this what they are doing is abusing the gift of Christ’s forgiveness to try to further live in their sins, and that is completely unacceptable. If someone sins, asks Jesus for forgiveness, and then goes right out and commits that sin once again, they really didn’t learn anything, did they? They didn’t use the opportunity to change and turn away from their sins.
Imagine that you have an air bed that develops a small hole in it because you accidently popped it with a pencil in your pocket. Now you can go and get a repair kit from the store to fix the hole, you can take the glue and the vinyl patch out of the package and completely seal the hole, but if you are going to just pop a hole in it again the next day, what would be the purpose? You must learn from your mistakes, so that you never do it again.
Forgiveness is available to all who call on Jesus, and He will gladly give it. But will you take that gift from Christ and use it properly? Will you learn from your mistakes?
In Christ
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 