Psalms 103:1 – 2 - “Bless the Lord,
O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”
One
of the great benefits to the believer is the knowledge of having your sins
forgiven. The Psalmist writes in Psalms
103:3, “Who forgives all your iniquities.” The Apostle Paul in his letter to
the Romans declares, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world,
and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned”
(Romans 5:12). The Psalmist defines our sinful condition in Psalms 51:5, “Behold,
I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”
We
need forgiveness because we are sinners, and our sin has alienated us from God
(Ephesians 4:18). Ray Pritchard writes
in his book, The Healing Power of
Forgiveness, “We need forgiveness because we are sinners who try to change
the rules so we can dodge the guilt question.
And because the rules can’t be changed, we end up extremely messed up on
the inside. Here is the bottom line; we
need forgiveness and cannot live without it. Without forgiveness, we are hollow
men and women, empty and conflicted on the inside.”[i]
One of greatest things the believer can experience is forgiveness.
The
Apostle John writes in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” Dr. H. L. Willmington
defines forgiveness as “a sending back, a putting away.”[ii]
What happens when we experience forgiveness?
The following Scriptures give us insight:
- Hebrews 10:17 – “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
- Colossians 1:13-14 – “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
- Psalms 103:12 – “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
- Micah 17:18-19 – “Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
- Isaiah 43:12 – ““I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.”
- Jeremiah 31:34b – “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
One of the greatest benefits of the
believer is to receive a pardon for our sins.
Pritchard writes, “Our sins are forgiven, forgotten, removed, buried,
and blotted out. They can never condemn
us again.”[iii]
Comments