I heard a Christian leader say, “Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, so now, there’s no need to ask for forgiveness after we sin.” It grieved my spirit to hear this. Even if he meant to explain or phrase it better, I was offended at the thought that his misstatement might confuse or lead people to wrongly believe God’s Word. Any way you slice it, it just doesn’t hold up. We have to ask our spouses, parents, other family members, and friends for forgiveness when we do something to offend them, even if it is unintentional. So, why would we not ask God for forgiveness when we sin. He has made it clear in His Word that sin greatly offends Him. It is a rebellion against His Word and Will. It is rebellion against the Cross of Christ, because he gave his life as a sacrifice to free us from sin. We don’t get a free pass to go against what God says in His Word. All we need to do is to keep on sinning to discover that the consequences are extremely costly, and without true repentance, we remain stuck and unable to develop true intimacy in our relationship with God.
The reality is that, now that we are in Christ, our ties to sin have been broken and destroyed. So, we don’t have to make that wrong choice and sin, because we’ve been freed from it. Romans 6:6(ESV) tells us, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” When we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, he gives us a clean slate. 2Corinthains 5:17 tells us that we become new creations in Christ, and it’s out with the old and in with the new, but some of us don’t live in the new. We keep sin alive in us even though we know that God says it’s wrong. For this, we must seek His forgiveness.
Jesus Christ said in John 3:5-7(NLT), “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.” Through Jesus Christ, God has given us the gift of salvation. It is a gift that we could never earn. We have received it because of God’s amazing grace. Romans 10:9-10 tells us that if we confess that Jesus is LORD with our mouths and we believe that God raised him from the dead, we will receive God’s salvation. By confessing with our mouths and believing in God’s resurrection power in our hearts, we are saved from the damnation of hell and given the gift of eternal life. We cannot be born-again multiple times. Just as we are only born once through our mother’s wombs, we have only one spiritual rebirth as well.
So, we do not have to continually repeat the born-again experience. Again, we only have to do it once with an honest heart. However, sometimes we struggle to accept the fullness of Christ’s deliverance. In our minds and hearts, we don’t put it on. We may believe in his sacrifice and resurrection, but it may take us time to believe in the total healing, freedom, and wholeness that we have in him.
Repentance is a change of heart and a change of mind. As we discover that we are still clinging to some aspect of that old dead life we had before Christ, we must crucify it so that it is removed from our hearts and minds. In order to do this, we must seek God’s forgiveness for the wrong we’ve done. This signals that our hearts and minds are truly changed, and we won’t continue doing the same sinful things we used to. We will no longer want to do those things because our hearts have been changed through the Holy Spirit and our minds comprehend that change. All of us probably know people that have been radically changed because Jesus Christ has come into their hearts, but we also know some believers that accepted Jesus Christ, but did not change much at all. It’s true that even though a person is saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, they might still be hanging on to some old habits that keep them stuck and unfulfilled. The way to get from underneath that is to lay bare before God and come clean.
Isaiah 2:11 (NLT) says “Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled. Only the Lord will be exalted on that day of judgment.” Attitudes of pride and arrogance cause us to think that we don’t have to tell God we’re sorry. We will not humble ourselves before Him and seek His forgiveness, but we are harming ourselves and our relationship with Him by doing this. When we do not acknowledge our sin, repent from it, and accept God’s forgiveness in the deep recesses of our hearts, we do not have the kind of heart that God requires from His kids.
God is our Heavenly Father, and when we love Him the way he deserves to be loved, we will be remorseful for the things we do that do not please Him. The Holy Spirit within us will be grieved and with the weight of that grief, we can’t help but get on our knees and cry out to God. He is not angry with us when we sin, and He does not punish us for those sins. Punishment is the devil’s business and sin will open the door for him to come in and disrupt our lives. True repentance locks the devil out.
When our heart is to please and honor God, He will forgive us every time that we seek it. 1John 1:9(NLT) says, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” God lovingly does this for us, but we must not use His grace as a license to keep repeating sinful behavior. We must pray for forgiveness in faith, with a humble heart. He will not continually hold our wrong choices, poor decisions, and bad behavior over our heads, but He wants us to wake up and remember that we are His kids and we must obey Him because He knows what is best for us. So, when we go to Him and say, “Father, I’m sorry”, He will accept our apology because He loves us, and He wants the Christ in us to shine so bright in our hearts that it illuminates the way for others. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Ask for Forgiveness”, written by KLizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.