Blessing and Covering

Rom 4:7-8 "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."  These are the kind of verses that I hang on to like a drowning man hangs on to a lifesaver.  I have screwed things up sufficiently and sinned against God and my fellow man that I depend on His forgiveness. To whom much is forgiven, much loves.

Let's get it straight, I do not deserve God's love. I do not deserve his mercy.  What I do deserve is His wrath.  My sin is detestable to Him and should earn my separation from Him for eternity.  I deserve to pay for my sins.  I know some folks who would like to see me get the punishment that I deserve.  They feel that way because of the pain that my sin has caused them.  Now think of how God feels.  He created this universe for His pleasure, a perfectly balanced paradise that bore fruit and was full of beauty.  He then created man in His image to be the caretaker and primary beneficiary of this paradise.  He then created the perfect partner and helper from his own flesh to help him.  How did we pay Him back for this wonderful gift?  We turned against Him and defiled His creation.  Every man and every woman born since Adam has continued this pattern as we are all born of the flesh and into sin.

It took the most radical and miraculous act since the creation of the universe to begin to put things back aright.  It took God Himself, taking the form of a human and leaving behind His divinity, to rescue His creation.  In effect He bought it back with the blood of His Son upon whom He put the weight of all our sins even though He Himself was spotless and without transgression.  All creation had been held hostage to sin.  Christ paid the ransom and gave Himself as a deposit, a guarantee for our redemption. As a result, we are blessed.

I love the wording here where it says that our sins are covered.  In the Greek the word means to conceal by covering.  They can't be seen by the Father because all He sees is the covering of the righteousness of the Son.  Jesus has us covered, literally. 

Then the next verse talks about our sins not counting against us or in the King James," to whom the Lord will not impute sin."  The word in the Greek for "impute" means to take inventory.  The list of our sins is not held against us.

God is love.  When God teaches us about love through the Apostle Paul He says the following in His description of the actions of love: " it keeps no record of wrongs" ( 1 Cor 13:5)

We are commanded not to keep an inventory of the wrongs done to us out of love.  And yet, what is the first thing that people bring to a mediation session between them and another believer, an inventory of the perceived wrongs the other person has done to injure the relationship.

How can we expect God to forgive us and not impute our sins to us if we cannot forgive the sins of those who sin against us?

Unforgiveness stunts spiritual growth.  We may say that we pray and study the Word but the words of Jesus are clear on this subject.

Matt 5:23-24 "Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift."

Don't think that your prayers, your sacrifice, your spiritual disciplines have any value before God if you harbor unforgiveness in your heart.

I know that it is hard to forgive.  The main reason that so many of us don't forgive is because we feel that if we forgive someone we are condoning their actions, that we are saying that it's OK that they sinned.  It has nothing to do with that.  That is between them and the Father.  What forgiveness does is that it frees us from the power that the sin has over us.

When people sin against us and we hold on to the anger and the pain, we yield control to that person.  If you want to take back control of your life you can do so by choosing to forgive.  With forgiveness come freedom and life.

Rom 12:20 "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.  In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."