Continuing with -
Steps to Christ -
'Chap. 6 - Faith and
Acceptance
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 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.
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 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 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 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;
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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