"There's nothing we can do to earn God's forgiveness. But..."

A thought by Steven Furtick from his book, Seven-Mile Miracle: Journey into the Presence of God Through the Last Words of Jesus (p. 29). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

I know that so many don’t understand that to be true. 

Steven earlier said, “Don’t even think about trying to make yourself spiritually pure. It’s nonsensical to imagine you could do so, yet that’s the way a lot of people think. If I go to church every week, read my Bible every day, put money in the offering, stop swearing, avoid gluten, and have more patience with my kids, God will like me. Nothing we could do will ever be enough to get rid of our sin. We just have to receive the forgiveness Jesus offers. We repent, confess, and ask to have our sins washed away. He does the work of purifying us.”

Steven then says, “There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s forgiveness. But when we have received his forgiveness, we do have a responsibility. We have to forgive others too.

“The forgiveness we receive from God and the forgiveness we give to others are so closely tied together that we can’t separate them. Jesus said, ‘If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.’ (Matthew 6:14-15)

“Jesus was not teaching us to forgive people in order to earn our salvation. That would run contrary to the whole theme of the New Testament. Jesus was teaching this: If you don’t give it, you don’t ‘got it’, because if you’ve got it, you’ll give it. That may not be good grammar, but it’s good theology.”

He also said, “Forgiveness may be the first leg of our journey, but it’s not something we ever really get past in this life. Whenever we do wrong (and of course we will), we are to again seek forgiveness from God. Whenever others do wrong to us (and of course they will), we are to freely give them our forgiveness, because Jesus has shown us the example."

Later Steven says, “Anne Lamott says, ‘Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.’  In other words, forgiveness is not only a defensive mechanism based on what we deserve, it’s also an offensive strategy to win the war against bitterness in our hearts.

“Becoming pure like Jesus and entering into the presence of God requires that we lose both our offenses against God and our grudges toward others who have offended us. We can’t start moving on our journey until we’ve been liberated by forgiveness.”

So, have you been liberated from your offenses toward God and from your grudges toward others?  Then will you ask him to forgive you and will you forgive them?  Will you?

Yes, yes!