….your sins are forgiven….

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”   Psalm 139:23-24 NLT

We can never be a true disciple of Jesus until we adequately despise sin.   It is not enough for us to abandon sin; we must loathe it.

God refers to sin in terms of beastliness, the stubborn horse, the wily snake, the mud-loving pig.  That is not accidental!  The beastliness of sin represents sin in its farthest distance from God, not merely that which is different from God, but that which is opposite.

My true feeling about sin is never reflected about sin in general; it is always about sin in me.   God never redeems abstractions or principles; He redeems people.

Until I can loathe the sin that I commit I will never understand God’s attitude toward my sin and His undying determination to redeem me from it.

My true attitude toward a specific sin seldom is formed before I commit it; that occurs afterward.   It is difficult to see sin in its true light when it approaches me to tempt me.  Then sin may often appear as “good” to the taste, “a delight to the eyes,” and “desirable to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6). 

But once it has done its work, I see its viciousness, I feel defiled, I mourn my actions and I turn to God in pitiful humiliation for His cleansing power.

To be a true disciple of Jesus I must see the beastliness of sin before it works its devastation upon me.   I must hate it everlastingly.  I must never lose my focus on the fact that it was my very own sin that drove Jesus to tears, to loud outcries, to moaning and groaning, and to the cross. 

When I feel this way about my sin, I will understand Isaiah’s “Woe is me” (Isa. 6:5) and what it means to be cleansed with a coal from the altar.

“Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”  Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.   He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.”   Isa. 6:5-7 NLT