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Contents
Faith and
Acceptance
Chapter 6
(49)
As your conscience has been quickened
by the Holy Spirit, you have seen something of the evil of sin, of its power,
its guilt, its woe; and you look upon it with abhorrence. You feel that sin has
separated you from God, that you are in bondage to the power of evil. The more
you struggle to escape, the more you realize your helplessness. Your motives are
impure; your heart is unclean. You see that your life has been filled with
selfishness and sin. You long to be forgiven, to be cleansed, to be set free.
Harmony with God, likeness to Him--what can you do to obtain it?
It is peace that you need--Heaven's
forgiveness and peace and love in the soul. Money cannot buy it, intellect
cannot procure it, wisdom cannot attain to it; you can never hope, by your own
efforts, to secure it. But God offers it to you as a gift, "without money
and without price." Isaiah 55:1. It is yours if you will but reach out your
hand and grasp it. The Lord says, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as
wool." Isaiah 1:18. "A new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you." Ezekiel 36:26.
You have confessed your sins, and in
heart put them away. You have resolved to give yourself to God. Now go to Him,
and ask that He will wash away your sins and give you a new heart. Then
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believe that He does this because He
has promised. This is the lesson which Jesus taught while He was on earth, that
the gift which God promises us, we must believe we do receive, and it is ours.
Jesus healed the people of their diseases when they had faith in His power; He
helped them in the things which they could see, thus inspiring them with
confidence in Him concerning things which they could not see--leading them to
believe in His power to forgive sins. This He plainly stated in the healing of
the man sick with palsy: "That ye may know that the Son of man hath power
on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take
up thy bed, and go unto thine house." Matthew 9:6. So also John the
evangelist says, speaking of the miracles of Christ, "These are written,
that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye might have life through His name." John 20:31.
From the simple Bible account of how
Jesus healed the sick, we may learn something about how to believe in Him for
the forgiveness of sins. Let us turn to the story of the paralytic at Bethesda.
The poor sufferer was helpless; he had not used his limbs for thirty-eight
years. Yet Jesus bade him, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." The sick
man might have said, "Lord, if Thou wilt make me whole, I will obey Thy
word." But, no, he believed Christ's word, believed that he was made whole,
and he made the effort at once; he willed to walk, and he did walk. He acted on
the word of Christ, and God gave the power. He was made whole.
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In like manner you are a sinner. You
cannot atone for your past sins; you cannot change your heart and make yourself
holy. But God promises to do all this for you through Christ. You believe that
promise. You confess your sins and give yourself to God. You will to serve Him.
Just as surely as you do this, God will fulfill His word to you. If you believe
the promise,--believe that you are forgiven and cleansed,--God supplies the
fact; you are made whole, just as Christ gave the paralytic power to walk when
the man believed that he was healed. It is so if you believe it.
Do not wait to feel that you are made
whole, but say, "I believe it; it is so, not because I feel it, but because
God has promised."
Jesus says, "What things soever ye
desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have
them." Mark 11:24. There is a condition to this promise--that we pray
according to the will of God. But it is the will of God to cleanse us from sin,
to make us His children, and to enable us to live a holy life. So we may ask for
these blessings, and believe that we receive them, and thank God that we have
received them. It is our privilege to go to Jesus and be cleansed, and to stand
before the law without shame or remorse. "There is therefore now no
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit." Romans 8:1.
Henceforth you are not your own; you
are bought with a price. "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as
silver and gold;... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without
blemish and
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without spot." 1 Peter 1:18, 19.
Through this simple act of believing God, the Holy Spirit has begotten a new
life in your heart. You are as a child born into the family of God, and He loves
you as He loves His Son.
Now that you have given yourself to
Jesus, do not draw back, do not take yourself away from Him, but day by day say,
"I am Christ's; I have given myself to Him;" and ask Him to give you
His Spirit and keep you by His grace. As it is by giving yourself to God, and
believing Him, that you become His child, so you are to live in Him. The apostle
says, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in
Him." Colossians 2:6.
Some seem to feel that they must be on
probation, and must prove to the Lord that they are reformed, before they can
claim His blessing. But they may claim the blessing of God even now. They must
have His grace, the Spirit of Christ, to help their infirmities, or they cannot
resist evil. Jesus loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful,
helpless, dependent. We may come with all our weakness, our folly, our
sinfulness, and fall at His feet in penitence. It is His glory to encircle us in
the arms of His love and to bind up our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity.
Here is where thousands fail; they do
not believe that Jesus pardons them personally, individually. They do not take
God at His word. It is the privilege of all who comply with the conditions to
know for themselves that pardon is freely extended for every sin. Put away the
suspicion that God's promises are not meant for you. They are for every
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repentant transgressor. Strength and
grace have been provided through Christ to be brought by ministering angels to
every believing soul. None are so sinful that they cannot find strength, purity,
and righteousness in Jesus, who died for them. He is waiting to strip them of
their garments stained and polluted with sin, and to put upon them the white
robes of righteousness; He bids them live and not die.
God does not deal with us as finite men
deal with one another. His thoughts are thoughts of mercy, love, and tenderest
compassion. He says, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous
man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon
him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." "I have blotted
out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins."
Isaiah 55:7; 44:22.
"I have no pleasure in the death
of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live
ye." Ezekiel 18:32. Satan is ready to steal away the blessed assurances of
God. He desires to take every glimmer of hope and every ray of light from the
soul; but you must not permit him to do this. Do not give ear to the tempter,
but say, "Jesus has died that I might live. He loves me, and wills not that
I should perish. I have a compassionate heavenly Father; and although I have
abused His love, though the blessings He has given me have been squandered, I
will arise, and go to my Father, and say, 'I have sinned against heaven, and
before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son: make me as one of Thy
hired servants.'" The parable tells you how
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the wanderer will be received:
"When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion,
and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Luke 15:18-20.
But even this parable, tender and
touching as it is, comes short of expressing the infinite compassion of the
heavenly Father. The Lord declares by His prophet, "I have loved thee with
an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."
Jeremiah 31:3. While the sinner is yet far from the Father's house, wasting his
substance in a strange country, the Father's heart is yearning over him; and
every longing awakened in the soul to return to God is but the tender pleading
of His Spirit, wooing, entreating, drawing the wanderer to his Father's heart of
love.
With the rich promises of the Bible
before you, can you give place to doubt? Can you believe that when the poor
sinner longs to return, longs to forsake his sins, the Lord sternly withholds
him from coming to His feet in repentance? Away with such thoughts! Nothing can
hurt your own soul more than to entertain such a conception of our heavenly
Father. He hates sin, but He loves the sinner, and He gave Himself in the person
of Christ, that all who would might be saved and have eternal blessedness in the
kingdom of glory. What stronger or more tender language could have been employed
than He has chosen in which to express His love toward us? He declares,
"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion
on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."
Isaiah 49:15.
Look up, you that are doubting and
trembling;
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for Jesus lives to make intercession
for us. Thank God for the gift of His dear Son and pray that He may not have
died for you in vain. The Spirit invites you today. Come with your whole heart
to Jesus, and you may claim His blessing.
As you read the promises, remember they
are the expression of unutterable love and pity. The great heart of Infinite
Love is drawn toward the sinner with boundless compassion. "We have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins." Ephesians 1:7. Yes,
only believe that God is your helper. He wants to restore His moral image in
man. As you draw near to Him with confession and repentance, He will draw near
to you with mercy and forgiveness.
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