Saturday 21 January 2017

He will Cleanse You. ~ Rabqa

1Jn1:9(AMP) If we freely admit that we have sinned & confess
our sins He is faithful & just true to His own nature & promise & will forgive our sins, dismiss our lawlessness & continually cleanse us from all unrighteousness; everything not in conformity to His will in purpose, thought & action.

Notice that we are told in this passage of Scripture If we will confess our sins to God, He will continuously cleanse us. I believe this is the spiritual parallel to the way our blood continuously cleanses our body.

Our blood works for us all the time to keep us cleansed of all poison, & the blood of Jesus works all the time, continuously cleanses us from sin in all its forms & manifestations (1John 1:7).

There is power in the shed blood of Jesus Christ! You & I are continually cleansed, not just every once in a while but frequently & continuously. The Bible states that there is only one requirement on our part: We must freely admit that we have sinned & confess our sins. Be quick to repent. Do not try to hide anything from God. He will never reject you. Besides He knows everything anyway.

Repentance releases the power of His blood on your behalf & makes it effective in your life Confess your sins & allow the blood of Jesus to cleanse you on a regular basis. God is faithful. God is just in all that He does. God promises to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. All that He requires is that we trust in His goodness and risk exposing our heart to Him by confessing our shortcomings.

When we confess our sins, we are vulnerable and honest before our God and Father. When we confess our sins to God, we openly declare that we are relying on His mercy to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and that we can't do it ourselves. It takes faith and trust to live a transparent life before God, but that is the pathway to real freedom.

When we keep things in the dark, those things have power over us and will keep us enslaved in one form or another. When we bring things into the light that lurk in the shadows of our heart, we experience new found freedom over those things.

The amazing thing is that God is not surprised by what we confess, for He knows us better than we know ourselves. He does not judge us when we open our hearts to Him, but rather the opposite happens. In Psalm 103:13-14 (AMP) AS a father loves & pities his children, so the Lord loves & pities those who fear Him with reverence &awe. For He knows our frame, He earnestly remembers & imprints on His heart that we are dust.

When we are vulnerable and honest before God, compassion rises up in His heart towards us because He understands our frailties. The confession of our sins is for our benefit, not His. He has already dealt with the issue of sin that once separated us through the shed blood of Jesus... once and for all! All God wants is for us to be completely free! Free from a guilty conscience and free from condemnation and the accusations from the enemy! So if there is anything that is keeping you from experiencing the intimacy of being with your Daddy God, be assured in knowing that He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness!

 Lamentations 3:21-23 Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. We see here that we can have hope & exception of all that is good. We learn that the Lord is full of mercy, compassion & faithfulness. The writers positive thoughts about God brought him out of the depressed state he was in. When we think about our problems we sink lower & lower, but thoughts about the goodness, mercy & kindness & faithlessness of God give us hope. We need to thank God every day for His abundant mercy! His mercies are new every morning. Surely we would live miserable, defeated lives separated from His presence & if it were not for His compassion & willingness to forgive us. When we meditate on God's mercy & truly realise how much He willingly forgives us, we can much more easily show mercy to others. Good relations are impossible unless we are generous with mercy & forgiveness. Being merciful simply means we are good to those who do not deserve goodness. We have received unmerited blessing from God, & He expects us to give to others what we have received from Him. Let the goodness of God flow through you, because He has created you to be blessed & to be blessing.

 In Luke 6:37 Jesus said that we are to forgive our enemies & be kind, doing favours in such a way that people benefit from them. In this way we show ourselves to be like our Father in heaven, for He is merciful, kind & good. He promised that we would lose nothing & our reward would be great. God is our vindicator, & we always come out on top if we do things His way. God's mercy is new every morning, & I for one am glad because I am sure that I use my allotted portion every day. I am grateful for a fresh start every day. God desires mercy not sacrifice.

When we make mistakes, He does not want our sacrifice. Jesus is the only sacrifice ever needed. He wants us to admit our mistakes, repent & receive forgiveness & mercy. When others make mistakes & hurt or offend us, He wants us to give them mercy & not require sacrifices from them. Which means is that we are not to make people feel guilty or pay for their errors, but to give them the gift of mercy instead, just as we receive that gift from God.

God is faithful. He is full of compassion. His mercies are new every morning. As a believer, you know all that but simply knowing that is not enough. For it to do you any good, you have to recall it. You have to remember it again & again in order to rekindle your hope & stir your faith. So, make it a point to remind yourself of God's faithfulness every morning. Remind yourself of the benefits that are yours in Jesus.

Psalm 103 spells out those benefits:

  •  1. He forgives all your sins. 
  • 2. He heals your diseases. 
  • 3. He redeems your life from destruction. 
  • 4. He crowns you with loving kindness & tender mercies. 
  • 5. He satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. 
  • 6. He executes righteousness & judgement for you against oppression. He sets you free. 
  • 7. He makes known His ways to you. 
  • 8. He gives you His grace & mercy in times of need. 


Make it a point every morning this year to say those things out loud to the Lord. Stand before Him in prayer & recall His mercies to you. Keep it up & by the end of this year you will be stronger in faith & more confident of God's love then you have before. Psalm 136:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever .

The Hebrew word for "forever" is olam. It is derived from the verb alam (veil from sight or conceal), olam refers to that infinite & everlasting expanse God has created. It is both an unending expanse of space (universe) & time (eternity), indicating the limitless dimensions in which God's sovereignty is displayed. The word sometimes refers to the remotely distant past.(93:2) & sometimes to the remotely distant future (Jer 25:5). God is called El 'Olam "the everlasting God" (Gen 21:33 Is 40:28). As God is eternal so is His mercy le olam, that is, "unto the forever.

The literal meaning for the word "endures" is "because forever is His mercy. The word MERCY in Hebrew is chesed is also translated lovingkindness, unfailing love or steadfast covenant love, & is similar to the New Testament word for "grace." God love (mercy) is repeated line by line in this poem. God's mercy endures forever! His willingness to act on man's behalf is still operating in the earth. His mercy never runs out. Neither has it abated or weakened. Praise the Lord for His mercy endures forever.

Mighty & powerful things happened when Israel said these words. They are words of praise & adoration to God. When Solomon finished building the house of the Lord, the trumpeters & singers lifted up their voices as one, & with trumpets, cymbals & instruments of music, they praised the Lord saying, " For He is good for His mercy endures for ever." Jehoshaphat appointed singers unto the Lord to go before the army & say, "Praise the Lord for His mercy endures forever."

It has been thousands of years since the Lord said His mercy extended to a thousand generations, & His mercy continues to reach you day after day. He is still plenteous in mercy to those that call upon Him. Spirit, dare to stretch your faith to take in boundless mercy of God. & say with your mouth, "The Lord is good & His mercy endures forever. His mercy surrounds me every day.

 2 Chronicles 5:11-14 teaches that worship is a powerful way for us to draw near to Him as it was in Solomon's day. If you long to experience His presence in your life then worship, worship, worship.

In the Old Testament, God's glory visibly filled the temple overwhelming the priests to the point where they were unable to stand. Today, under the New Covenant you & I are God's temple (1 Corn 6:19) God wants to display His glory in & through us as dramatically as He did in the physical temple of Solomon's day. When God's glory is manifested in your life others will look at you & know what a great God you serve, because the power of His goodness toward you is visibly evident to them. God wants to fill your temple with His power & glory. Hebrews 13:15 Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name. Practice persistent, patience & praise. Devotion is concentration on a particular pursuit, purpose or cause. He who is devoted Jesus recognises his fleshly tendency to become lackadaisical & studies to avoid it.

The Scriptures shape his thinking, & he devotes time prayer, to waiting upon the Lord & to praise & thanksgiving. Great things happen when you continually confess the mercy of God. Faith raises up inside you. The reality that God loves you begins to sing through your spirit. What's more, it brings honour to your Father when you believe His Word & magnify His love & mercy. You honour Him when you speak of His goodness & lovingkindness, when you talk about Him as your Father of love who does good. It blesses Him when you praise Him as the great God of the universe who is eager to bless & even gave His own Son because He so loved the world. so much.

 I add that if you had been the only person on the earth, Jesus would have still have gone to the cross, in obedience to His Father so that you may spend eternity with Him.

 David was a man after God's own heart. He knew how to praise his God. Until you have the Word dwelling in you richly so that you can speak Psalms & praises out of your own spirit, use the praises of David to magnify God. Speak them or sing them out loud to the Father. Put His Word continually on your lips. You will soon begin to experience the joy of realising that God is indeed rich in mercy because because of His great love with which He loved us. Your faith will rise to new heights & your Father will be blessed, & so will you.

We learn from Psalm 89 that it is a messianic psalm reaffirming the Davidic covenant in which his seed will reign. It shows that God is able to rescue His promise from the depths of the grave, if necessary to fulfil it. Verse 15 shows us blessed are those who worship in joy & happiness.
 
Acknowledgements Gloria Copeland.

No comments:

Post a Comment