Hosanna Restoration Church

There are days when I am with the Lord that He drops bombs into my heart. This week, I was filled with gratitude as I considered what a gift it is to know we need forgiveness. I realize that what bombs me, may not reverberate with others, but even for the smallest of things, the joy that comes from asking God to forgive us is something we should never lose sight of.

David cried out to the Lord for the restoration of the joy of his salvation in Psalm 51. Do you remember the joy of sins forgiven? Do you rejoice when you are forgiven now.

Yes, I am glad to be forgiven. Jesus died for all my sins. He died for all your sins. He died for the sins of yesterday, and He died for the sins of today, tomorrow, and forever. So, forgiveness is there like an extra blanket at the foot of the bed, waiting to be pulled up and over for our comfort. Yes, forgiveness gives us joy and comforts us. The Holy Spirit came and gifted us with the knowledge that we need forgiveness for our sins. How great is that?

I am not promoting sin consciousness here, so that we go around beaten down. I am promoting the awareness of the way to be free and enjoy the presence of God. Christians are supposed to enjoy the life that God has given us. If we lose track of where our joy began, we are prime targets for the enemy to herd us back to our old ways. After all, not all our old ways were so bad! Or were they?

We are God’s crowning creation. We are what and who He cares the most about. Every other part of creation does what it was created to do; we are the only part that has the choice of following or not!

Part of the problem may be that we fail to consider all that He has done for us. When we fail to appreciate the goodness of God, or recognize Him in everything good, we probably also fail to recognize our own drifting. The joy of the Lord is an anchor to keep us from drifting away.

“Lord, don’t let me go back.” That may be the best prayer I ever prayed! It may be why God bombs me with the obvious from time to time. Oh, the joy of sins forgiven. Wow! Just Wow!

When things in the world are so out of control, it can be easy to comfort ourselves that we are not part of the really bad stuff. We can be like the pharisee that prided himself in his religious appearance but did not leave the altar forgiven.

We were given a gift. The gift is so amazing that we should go through this filled with joy and gratitude. We must not lose our sense of wonder of our wonderful God. Paul told Timothy to stir up the gifts in him. I want to encourage you with the encouragement that I received from God as I rejoiced in the fact that He opened my eyes to see that I needed forgiveness. Forgiveness removes guilt and shame. It protects us from settling for just getting away with it, and it frees us to enjoy all that God has ever done for us and all that He has planned for us. What joy we have in Jesus.