![]() He wants to create a wedge between you and God. Since he cannot keep you from going to Heaven, now he wants to derail you and distract you from serving God. One of the things Satan would love to do is get you so focused on your guilt that you stop serving at church, stop witnessing, stop growing in your faith, and stop trusting what God’s Word says. Otherwise you’ll fall into the devil’s trap and fall for his schemes, which we are commanded not to be ignorant of, so that he cannot outwit us (2 Corinthians 2:11). Our ceasing to do good works, or doing bad works, cannot move us out of His hands, simply because it is not our good works that put us there in the first place (we have no good works apart from Christ), but only the perfect work of Christ done on our behalf.īeware of letting your feelings keep you from trusting the Lord. No one can pluck us out of the Father’s hands (John 10:29). We can do absolutely nothing to earn our standing with Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9 Titus 3:5). The devil may even try to convince you that you’ve lost your salvation. Trust His Word, Not Your Feelingsĭon’t buy into Satan’s lie that your relationship with God depends on you always doing the right thing and feeling a certain way. ![]() He has seen us at our worst and still loves us. If we were worthy of it, we wouldn’t need it! But God showed His grace to us in that while we were yet depraved and sinful, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). If you feel you’re not worthy of God’s forgiveness, you’re right-none of us is worthy of His grace. ![]() Absolution from the Lord is far more powerful than absolution from oneself.” That means releasing those sins we want to hold on to, refusing to revisit them in our minds, and allowing the truth of our forgiveness to cover us with His peace. We must simply receive that forgiveness and rest in it. So if we choose to believe we’re unforgiven after we’ve confessed, we say Christ’s sacrifice wasn’t good enough to save us by His grace, and in effect, we call God a liar.Ĭhuck Swindoll wrote, “By focusing on forgiving ourselves, we have taken the spotlight off of God and pointed it at us-making it doubly difficult to let go of our sin! He has forgiven us. We simply aren’t good enough to ever pay off our own sins. Only we who are covered with the blood of Christ will escape eternal judgment for our sins, because that judgment has been laid on another whose gift of atonement we have received. But since we have no righteousness to pay for our sins, we can never atone for them, and therefore the self-punishment can never end. We Dare Not Call God a LiarĪll sins must be punished-if we don’t accept Christ’s punishment on our behalf, we leave ourselves to take it on. Whether or not you have doubts, whether or not you have a subjective emotional sense of “feeling forgiven” is irrelevant-the fact is, if you have done what 1 John 1:9 says, (and unless God isn’t telling the truth!) you are forgiven. So, have you confessed your sins to Christ? If yes, then you are forgiven. If we believe Satan when he says Christ’s death wasn’t sufficient to cover our every sin, then we are choosing to believe the most accomplished liar of all time, the one whose native language is lies. ![]() “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). What does He say? “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37, NIV). ![]() Satan is lying to you and saying Christ’s redemptive work is not available to you in this case. Jesus said Satan is a liar, and when he lies he speaks his native language. Tozer entitled one of his editorials “I talk back to the devil,” and it later became the title of one of his books.) But Christ has fully forgiven me and He is infinitely greater than you, as 1 John 4:4 says. So talk back to the devil and say, “You’re right, I’m a sinner. That means the source of your despair is not God but the evil one. If you can relate to the sentiment of this message, here’s what I encourage you to do: ask yourself, “Have I accepted Christ’s sacrifice on my behalf, and also confessed to God this sin?” If the answer is yes, would God on the one hand say, “I’ve fully forgiven you” (the clear teaching of Scripture) but then turn around and plague you with guilt feelings when in fact He died to remove your guilt? No, obviously not. I’ve asked Christ’s forgiveness for it many times but can’t seem to resolve my feelings of guilt and accept God’s forgiveness.” Talk Back to the Devil I’ve received messages over the years from believers who say something along the lines of this: “I struggle with forgiving myself for a past sin. ![]()
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