A dear friend recently taught me how it is important for the children of God to be setteled on the issue of forgivness based on the finished work of Jesus, otherwise we will as Christians continue to be jerked around by the evil one. Furthermore, there will be many Christians whho will come against this, this teaching of eternal forgiveness. It is time to settle on this issue.
In Luke 23:3-43 All it took for the thief to be saved was the simple act of acknowledging Jesus for who He is. All the thief said was "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." And Jesus said to him "Truly I say to you, Today you will be with me in paradise."
I ask you this, in anyway was there any confession of sins on the part of the thief before he received eternal forgiveness? NO! All he did was to acknowledge Jesus for who He is when he addressed Him as Lord. See how easy and simple our Heavenly Father has made it for us and it is based entirely on His Son and His finished work alone and None of US...Yet it is the religious flesh that is inherent in everyone of us as a result of the sin of Adam that wants to add to the finished work of Jesus with our very own works, either through confession of sins, penance in some cases, or works to merit salvation, entry into heaven or to be rewarded by Him. I will repeat this again later because it bares repeating, but these acts cause us to always become SIN conscious and not God conscious...
This I never knew, maybe it was just me but when I first heard this I was truly surprised..I continued to learn that furthermore, all of the disciples have acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God, The Messiah in the FLESH except Judas. When Jesus declared to His disciples that one of them will betray Him, all of them addressed Jesus as Lord, again except Judas, who addressed Jesus as Rabbi - Matt 26:20-25. Until the very end, Judas only ever saw Jesus as rabbi, a teacher, you see he never saw Jesus as the savior.
(Now to backtrack a bit, I have learned all this because I was told that a church I attended years ago and loved dearly believed that if you did not repent after every sin you would go to hell...or at best case be in jeopardy of going to hell.. This got me wondering because I could not figure out how God could ever expect every single Christian who truly Loved Him to remember every single sin they ever committed, so what happened if we forgot one? Was God such an angry God that if we forgot a sin and didn't confess it we went to Hell? No He is not and if you truly study the word it shows this is truth...but back to what the Word says and why it is the truth...)
To those who believed that we have to confess every sin otherwise we end up in hell because of the visions that they have received, either they are liars or the visions are not from the Lord but from the
devil..And the sad truth is even the most elect will be deceived says the bible, so we as humans can think we had a divine vision but if it does not line up with the Word of God we must, must check ourselves and see was this really God? Because of the lack of scriptural knowledge, many are not able to discern that which is of the Lord and that which is of the devil and the flesh. In Matt 13:23-40, Jesus spoke on the parable of the weeds. Just as He sowed His seeds on the ground, the devil come and sow his weeds. The weeds are his wolves who have come disguised in sheep clothing to destroy His children through false teachings. I also believe we want so badly to feel Jesus and because so many don't truly know the love of Him but only think they do, or believe it is more important to Love God than let Him Love us, out of our own flesh we seek supernatural events and are sadly mislead. We love Him only because He FIRST loved us...but that will be my next blog...
In John 16:8-11, Jesus taught on the work of His Holy Spirit - to convict the world of unbelief because they did not believe in Jesus, of who He say He is and of His finished work. It is only one sin that the Holy Spirit convicts the world - the sin of unbelief. Jesus did not even mention the sins of homosexualism, abortion, sexual fornication's, murder, hate, lust, pride and etc.Why? It is because we
are all born as sinners because of Adam’s sin and as a result of being born a sinner, our very nature is to sin. That is why He came to save us and to give us a new nature - His very nature to us. But the sad part is that inspite of His finished work at the cross, through His sufferings, death and resurrection, the world and the religious church would either not acknowledge Jesus for who He say He is or His
finished work or they try to add to His finished work with their own carnal works.
Furthermore, the Holy Spirit comes to convict the believer of their righteousness in Christ, which is both His person as well as His gift. He did not come to convict the believer of their sins or their
unconfessed sin.
Finally, the Holy Spirit came to judge only one - the devil and his kingdom and this judgement was executed when Jesus cried out "it is finished" at His cross. But there will be a final judgement against
the devil and his kingdom, the lost souls in hell and death itself in the Day of judgement. But now, this passage of scripture clearly mention that the judgement of God was never against His children or
the people of this world, but it was against the devil and his demons.
To the Apostle Paul, Jesus gave him the revelation of the gospel of His grace and although he wrote three quarters of the new testament, not once did Paul make mention of confession of sins. In his epistles, confession is always to confess who Jesus is, what He has accomplished in His finished work, what are the great blessings and promises that He has given to us and who we are in Christ. Not once did Paul writes that we are to confess our sins. To the Corinthians church, there were
christians who were going to temple prostitutes. Yet, he did not ask them to confess their sins but he pointed them to the new identity in Christ by declaring that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit-1 Cor 6:15-20. And although Paul did write of many sins in his epistles including the sin of sexual immorality in this passage, he did not ask them to confess their sins but to flee sexual immorality in this case and also to remind them of who they are in Christ Jesus.
However, the church have not only misinterpreted the above scriptures but also large portions of scriptures, thereby bringing the children of God into bondage once again through the Law.
One of the most famous scriptures that have been totally misinterpreted is 1 John 1:9 which speaks of confession of sin. In every epistle, the writer always start the epistle by either addressing it to the church, the saints or a believer. But in chapter 1 of 1 John, the address was totally missing? Why? Because it was addressed to the Gnostics. The Gnostics do not believe that God came
in the flesh in the person of Jesus and neither did they believe in the concept of sin and therefore, that they are sinners. That is why this chapter first speaks of the person of Jesus whom they have seen
with their eyes, heard with their ears and touched with their hands. Then it goes on to address their wrong believe that they are not sinners. Verse 9 therefore address their wrong belief in verses 8 and
10, for by their wrong belief, they have made God a liar - v10 - who has declared in His scriptures through His prophets that all have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God and that there is none, not a single one, who is righteous or good before Him. But in chapter 2 onwards, it is addressed to the believers as it starts with "my children".
We must also understand why confession of sin has been done away with the new blood covenant of His grace in Christ Jesus. In the old testament under law, because Israel wanted to be justified by their obedience to the Law before God when no one could be justified by the Law before God, there was the need to repent of their sins. But in the new covenant, because Jesus paid the full price for our sins for all mankind, God has settled the problem of sin, once and for all. Our sins have been totally wiped out by His blood,. If He cannot see our sins anymore because it has been totally taken away, not only covered as in the old testament, by the blood of His Son, then it is pointless before God for us to continue to confess our sins before Him. But no so with the sin of unbelief - for not believing in Jesus and what He has accomplished for all of us through His finished work.
You have mentioned that many have shared that we need to continuously confess our sins otherwise we end up in hell. If that is the case, then all of us is doomed. For the simple reason that our salvation is now dependent upon our confession of sins instead of standing and resting in the finished work of His Son, Jesus Christ alone. None of us is able to confess our sins because it is unlimitless. God defines an evil heart as the heart of unbelief. - Heb 3:12. More than that, can we ever be totally sure that we have confessed all our sins. We think only of the sins of commission but what about the sins of omission? And since my I was taught even this now the church has come out with sins of transmission...so sins passed down from your family...My goodness..How in the world would anyone know what sins there parents, grandparents ect committed and never repented of? If is is based on our confession of sins, then, we will never have the absolute certainty of eternal salvation and our walk with the Lord will be on shaky grounds and it will lead to guilt and condemnation, misery and despair, exhaustion and burnout and many will depart from the faith as a result. Instead of running to Him when we fail, many will run away from Him when they fail and then become very vulnerable and become prey to the devil and his demons.
But what is so deadly about being preoccupied with confession of sins MY FRIENDS THIS I ALREADY SAID AND I SAID IT IN THE BEGINNING BECAUSE IT IS JUST SO VERY IMPORTANT....is that the more we confess our sins, the more we become sin conscious
and the more sin conscious we are, the more we will sin against God and we will never escape from the prison of sin into the glorious liberty and freedom in the Spirit of God that Christ has won for us.
The divine antitode is to be Christ conscious, for the more Christ conscious we are, of His Person, His finished work and His promises, the more we become like Him as we are transformed effortlessly into the image of Christ by His Holy Spirit. And the more Christ conscious we become, sin will lose its attractiveness over that child of God. Now, everything in him wants to obey Him out of gratitude to Him and in response to His love. Obedience is now a love response and no longer something that we have to do otherwise He might strike us down as many mistakenly believe.
Always remember this. To be sin conscious is deadly. It is deadly to our relationship with Him and in our walk. To be sin conscious renders us miserable and powerless and we become easy prey for the devil and his demons, to be devoured by them. And the devil’s chief weapon is the Law and confession of sins is nothing more than the works of the Law and trying to be justified by our obedience to the Law and by our works.
No, we are forever saved and forgiven based on what Jesus has done for all of us. And when we come into agreement with what He has declared, then, we are on solid ground for Christ and Christ alone is our everlasting Rock and our sure foundation. It is Christ and Christ alone. Never allow anyone to rob you or His people of His joy and peace in us because of the wrong teaching on confession of sins.
To cut it short, remember, there will be many who will come against you through their teaching on confession of sins. Ask them this one question "what did the thief do to receive eternal forgiveness and salvation when he was crucified alongside Jesus? Did he have to confess his sins before Jesus forgave him or did Jesus gave him, the gift of forgiveness and salvation and righteousness when he
acknowledge Jesus as Lord?".
I have asked many pastors what they believed and the crazy thing I found was this one the pastors who have even answered me said exactly what I just wrote...well I have to admit this was mostly the words of my friend..but the thing that blew my mind is many pastors simply ignored me and would never talk to me again just because I asked them about repentance and confessions of sins...I did have one pastor who said he saw two sides this what is written here and what much of the chuch today teaches which I do not believe is correct because as shown through the word above you will spend your days more consumed with the mistakes you make than spending time just letting Jesus Love you by worship, Praise, ect...simply put instead of getting intimate with God you will forever be getting intimate with your sins...but he added one thing he said when the Lord specifically asks you to do something and you disobey then he felt you should repent...
I spent a lot of time thinking of this...I asked the Lord and I did not look it up but I do think this, whenever the Lord has asked me to do something and I didn't there was never any need to repent because I immediately wished I would have done it and would to this day if I had it to do over I would have never disobeyed the Lord, so I believe when we don't do something He asks us to do well its auto instinct and repentance happens before we can even put it in words, that is unless you just don't care in which case I would think your whole salvation is in question...
HERE IS A DAILY INSPERATION BY JOSEPH PRINCE THAT JUST GOES WITH THE ABOVE......(I just copied and pasted it from email)
When I was a young Christian growing up in Singapore, I read a little
tract entitled This Was Your Life. In that tract, it said that when
you get to heaven, God will replay your entire life, including all
your sins, on a huge video screen for all the angels and other saints
to watch!
The idea that God was making such a video of my life with the
intention of screening it for everyone to watch used to make me feel
awful and condemned before God. How could I ever stand boldly in His
presence? And how was I going to face my loved ones and Christian
friends in heaven?
I was a nervous wreck, thinking about all my sins that God was
recording down, until I read this in the Bible: “Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord shall not impute sin.” (Romans 4:8) Hallelujah! I jumped
for joy when I found out that God was not counting my sins against me,
and that He has given me something called “non-imputation of sins”!
My friend, the reason that God does not impute any of our sins to us
is that He has already imputed all of them to the body of His Son
Jesus when He hung on the cross 2,000 years ago. Not only that, when
God punished His Son for our sins, He caused the curse of the law to
fall stroke by stroke upon Jesus’ entire body until every curse had
been fully satisfied. That is why we have been redeemed from the curse
of the law. (Galatians 3:13) That is why, instead of imputing sin to
us, God imputes righteousness!
God wants us to know that our sins and lawless deeds He will remember
no more. The words “no more” in the original Greek text carry a strong
double-negative meaning. In other words, God is saying, “No way, by no
means, will I ever remember your sins again!”
Beloved, since God says that He will remember your sins no more, why
do you still remember them? Or for that matter, your spouse’s or
neighbor’s sins? God does not want you to be conscious of sins because
He is not. So rejoice! Come to Him boldly and expect Him to show you
mercy and grace because He remembers your sins no more!
