Our Debt Has Been Paid In Full
#19 IN MY CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER JOURNEY THROUGH ROBERT MCGEE’S BEST-SELLING BOOK, THE SEARCH FOR SIGNIFICANCE.E.
“Propitiation” means that Christ has satisfied the holy wrath of God through His payment for sin. There was only one reason for Him to do this: He loves us. Infinitely, eternally, unconditionally, irrevocably. He loves us. God the Father loves us with the love of a father, reaching to snatch us from harm. God the Son loves us with the love of a brother, laying down His life for us. He alone has turned away God’s wrath from us. There is nothing we can do, no amount of good deeds we can accomplish, and no religious ceremonies we can perform that can paay for our sins. Instead, Christ has conclusively paid for them so that we can escape eternal condemnation and experience His love and purposes both now and forever.
We no longer have to fear punishment for our sins because Christ paid for them all — past, present, and future. This tremendous truth of propitiation clearly demonstrates that we are truly and deeply loved by God. His perfect love casts our all fear as we allow it to flood our hearts.
“Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love”
1 John 4:18 NLT
Potential Obstacles To Receiving This Truth
Poor Patterns of Motivation
All our lives we have experienced being made to feel bad about ourselves as a motivation from others. It would only be natural that we take this methodology and use it on others as well as on ourselves.
The Bible warns us that accepting condemnation will actually increase sin in our lives!
Holding on to Unforgiveness
We maintain unforgiveness for several reasons, including attempting to keep from being hurt again by those who have offended us. Here are a few other reasons we hold on to unforgiveness:
- The offense was too great to forgive.
- They won’t accept responsibility for their offense.
- They aren’t truly sorry.
- They never asked to be forgiven
- They will only do it again.
- I don’t like them.
- They did it deliberately
- If I forgive them, I’ll have to treat the offender well.
- Someone has to punish them.
- Something keeps me from forgiving them.
- I’ll be a hypocrite if I forgive them because I don’t feel like forgiving.
- I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget.
- I’ll forgive because I have found an excuse to justify the offense.
If we hold on to unforgiveness, we cannot accept our own forgiveness. The only way we can escape the torment of having unforgiveness is to begin to contemplate our own forgiveness until it has so impacted our lives that we are able to forgive others from our heart.
In my next blog posting I will discuss how we begin to experience freedom from unforgiveness.
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