Tag Archives: Good

Your Sins Have Been FIRED!


Let’s say someone comes up to you, removes your coat, and sends it away. Would you say you still had your coat?

No. It was removed. It was sent away. Literally, the coat is no longer here.

Jesus takes our sins away. (1 John 3:5). When John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:19)!”

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to FORGIVE US OUR SINS and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9 (Emphasis mine)

Just like that coat; they’re gone. Now, of course we don’t miss the coat or go shopping for new coats, right?

“No one who is born of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin,” – 1 John 3:9 (AMP)

Therefore, if we repent and turn to Him, Jesus forgives our sins (something only God can do, by the way).

The Greek for “forgive” carries the word picture of discharging something so as to leave.
I note it because:

  • It is so much fun to say: aphiémi (af-ee’-ay-mee).
  • Its roots are apó, “away from” and hiēmi, “send.”
  • Properly then, aphiémi means: send away; release (discharge).
  • By forgiving our sins, Jesus removes them and discharges them.

Therefore, because of Jesus’s wonderful Love & Grace, your sins have been:
Let go; fired, dismissed, sacked, axed, laid-off, and canned. They have been given their “pink slip” and “walking papers.” Like Elvis, your sins have left the building.

  • Stop re-living them.
  • Stop obsessing about them.
  • Stop beating yourself up over them.

Brother and sister, they are not even there! (Heb. 8:12, Rom. 11:27, Mic. 7:19, Psa. 103:12)

To pretend otherwise is to act like you still have that coat on that someone removed from you and sent away.

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Be Good-different, Not Bad-different

knight-with-laptop-e1497285485967Doing the legwork for a series on the Holy Spirit, I started by looking up what “holy” & “Spirit” even mean in the first place. (That is just the way my brain works.) Well, I didn’t get very far before I was floored by Yahweh’s unfathomable awesomeness. In fact, I didn’t get past the word holy.

Holy (hágios) means different or otherness.

Great, now I am different and one of the “Others.” (Lost fans unite!) The core meaning of hágios is “different.” [Thus a temple in the 1st century was hágios (“holy”) because it was different from other buildings (Wm. Barclay).]

So, its OK to be different! In fact, we are supposed to be different! Peter goes as far as to say we are “a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9, KJV). [And some are more peculiar than others, can I get an Amen?]

Now, slow down. Let me add a little proviso before you go all bananas & let your freak flag fly.

We are to be good-different. You know, like: “He’s different.” “Ok… is he good-different, or bad-different?” We are not different in the sense that we literally wear shiny battle armor like a knight to work every morning (Eph. 6:10-18). That would be bad-different… and you know, super-weird.

No, we should be good-different. As in, the world says “nobody thinks you should be married before you live together anymore.” We say “Yo! Over here! Us. We do!” That’s being different in a good way. [1 COR. 7, EPH 5, 1 PETER 3, & 2 COR. 6:14-15]

Hágios implies something “set apart” and therefore “different” because it is special to the Lord. For the believer hágios means “different from the world” because of “”likeness with the Lord.”

We are different from the world (Rom. 12:2, Prov. 1:15, 1 John 2:15-17, etc.) because we are like our Lord. Which leads me to one of my all-time favorite verses:

As He is, so are we in this world! – I John 4:17

Ok, now you can go nuts. Be hágios because He is hágios (1 Peter 1:16). Be good-different for the Lord. Be peculiar.

Ref:

Hágios

God’s design for marriage

The Others

Healthy Verse for the New Year

Got your verse for the new year:

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you – Matt. 5:44

Just imagine if everyone embraced it.
Yours in Christ