2 Corinthians 5:17-20 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has what? given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and he has also committed to us the same word of reconciliation.
The Father was in the Son, seeking to reconcile us to Him by judging our sins, condemning them, and punishing them in the body of our precious Jesus.
A.W. Tozer said that “The Holy man is not one who cannot sin, a Holy man is one who will not sin.”
Holiness is simply the desire to separate ourselves from anything that is wrong, and fully give ourselves to Jesus. Holiness means that when I said “yes” to Jesus, I would be saying “no” to anything that does not please Him.
It is important for us to realize that when we are involved in a sin that the Bible has specifically described, we cannot have any fellowship with the Lord while we are still in this sin.
Isaiah 59:1-2 Listen! The LORD is not too weak to save you, and he is not becoming deaf. He can hear you when you call. But there is a problem–your sins have cut you off from God. Because of your sin, he has turned away and will not listen anymore. NLT
When David was in the midst of his sin with Bathsheba, having committed adultery with her, then seeing to it that her husband Uriah was put on the front line of battle where he would be killed, he understood that he had lost his close fellowship with God:
Psalms 32:3-5 When I refused to confess my sin, I was weak and miserable, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. SELAH… (meaning that David was thinking about this)… Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide them. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.” And you forgave me! AND NOW All my guilt is gone. NLT
The Lord is loving, gracious, patient and kind. His heart towards us when we fall into sin, is that He does not want to destroy us. He waits for us to come to our senses and confess our sin to Him and stop the sin so that He can forgive it and restore us to a place of fellowship with Him once more.
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. NKJV
When the prodigal son had spent all of his resources on sin and finally came to his senses, he decided to go back home to his father to see if he might be hired as a servant. The father was waiting and watching for his son to return home. When he saw his son at the top of the hill far off in the distance, he ran to meet him.
There was no lecture over his sin, no condemnation, just an acknowledgement that his son was home now and that it was enough that his son knew that he had sinned and confessed his sins. Now the father was about the business of reconciliation and the restoration of his son’s life.
Jesus taught us this story so that we would understand that all of us will fall into sin. It is at the moment that we come to our senses and turn to come back to the Lord with confession and repentance, that forgiveness and restoration are ours.
In our walk with Jesus today, we should examine our own life to see if there is any sin that we are involved in that we need to turn away from today. When we do, and we come to Jesus in sincere repentance and a determination to not go back into that sin again, He will forgive us and restore our life, as well as bring us back into close fellowship with Him once again.
Rob Robinson
