Why Do We Need Forgiveness?

 

Proverbs 16:5(ESV) says, “Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.” The word ‘abomination’ is very severe and even more so when it is used to convey God’s displeasure. Abomination means to strongly hate or to be thoroughly disgusted and loathsome about something. God has judged arrogance as a character flaw, attitude, and behavior that He hates. This verse in Proverbs 16:5 is referring to a person, but it was satan who started this business of arrogance in the first place. At one time, satan was an angel of light, but he was banished from heaven because of his incredible offense against our Heavenly Father. God said of him in Ezekiel 28:14-15(NLT), “I ordained and anointed you as the mighty angelic guardian. You had access to the holy mountain of God and walked among the stones of fire. You were blameless in all you did from the day you were created until the day evil was found in you.” This evil that our Heavenly Father found in satan, called Lucifer, was arrogance; something God hates. We should all do everything we can to make sure God doesn’t find it in us.

Throughout biblical history, there have been kings that were given so much power by the people that they believed themselves to be a god. They thought they were above the law, and that they could possess and do anything they wanted. This kind of thinking and attitude is very much alive in the hearts of some people living today. We are on this earth but a moment, and there is nothing that any human being can do to stay here longer than God will allow. Everything we are and everything we have comes from Him, and without God, we can’t do anything.

God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He is King of the Kingdom of Heaven, and He is sovereign in every way. All glory and honor belongs to Him, and through Jesus Christ, He has allowed us to share it. He allows humans to be full of themselves, and to think higher of themselves than they ought, because He is merciful, but dishonoring God through an arrogant mindset is a very dangerous thing. The price for it is higher than anything you and I can imagine.

We are made in the image of God. He did not create us to be robots or puppets, we are self-governing. He’s given us the gift of free-will, and we determine who we are going to be. Heavenly Father created us in the image of His dear and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, but whether or not we own our identity in Christ is completely left to each of us. God tells us in Romans 6:23(NLT), “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sin is wrong believing. It is decisions and choices that are not aligned with the truth. Our reality is in Christ, but most people, for whatever reasons, deny or reject this. They don’t want to follow the example of our Lord and Savior. They could have chosen to follow Christ and become filled with his love and light, but instead, they have chosen to believe a lie. They indulged darkness and allowed satan to pull the wool over their eyes and blind them to the truth. The wages for the choice to follow darkness is death.

We are the children of God and the siblings of Jesus Christ. This is the greatest reality we could ever hope to know. We were created by God to be the embodiment of Christ, and God is always rooting for us to see in ourselves what He sees when He looks at us. Sin does not tell the truth about our identity, and instead of progressing, it takes us further away from God’s purpose. Sin causes us to regress, because it comes from darkness. It causes our minds and hearts to pull from the lowest and most base level of nothingness. Sin keeps us operating under the delusion that the fullness of life can be achieved by partnering with darkness. It tricks us into thinking we won’t pay a price for neglecting to connect to the Source of all life. Most people don’t discover they’ve been bamboozled by the devil until it’s too late.

The Good News of Jesus Christ is that as long as we are still above ground, it is never too late. Colossians 1:12 reminds us that God has enabled us to share in the inheritance of Jesus Christ as God’s people of love and light. Before we knew about God’s love and light, we thought that our physical temple was all there was to our identities. We thought we were just a body, and we didn’t realize we were spiritual beings having an earth experience. When we denied our spiritual identity in Christ, we walked around in darkness like everyone else, but through His only begotten Son, God had a plan for our redemption. Jesus Christ sacrificed his life on the cross and died to pay the price of our sin for all eternity. When we accept what he did for us, we are accepting his great love into our hearts. This causes our dead spirit to be born again and come alive to God the way He always wanted.  

Accepting the overwhelming and infinite love of God into our hearts is done by accepting the reality and truth that He gave His most precious treasure to save us. Colossians 1:12-13(NLT) says, “He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.” Repenting from our sins and accepting the forgiveness that Jesus Christ offers opens the door to life the way God intended, to life lived abundantly through Christ. We desperately need God’s forgiveness. When we seek it and accept His love into our hearts, we are forever changed and transformed into who we were always meant to be. ■

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Why Do We Need Forgiveness?” written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.