Tag Archives: sins

Though Your Sins are Like Scarlet Only Christ Can Atone :: Isaiah 1:18-20

I am in the middle of reading three different reading plans from YouVersion (I rotate reading from one particular plan each day), and today in the Canonical Plan started the book of Isaiah. I put off starting the book for a week or two because of its depth and heaviness, but today was the day. This is one of my favorite Old Testament books, probably because it is one that I understand the least, but three verses really stuck with me, Isaiah 1:18, 19, and 20.

Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.

At first I just read that above and moved on. I love that “let us reason together,” but if we stop there we miss the point. There is a decision to be made for that statement to come to pass on our lives, and it’s from verse 18, “if you are willing and obedient,” and verse 19, “but if you refuse and rebel.”

The decision is for Christ, and without Christ, verse 18 will never come to pass. The word from the Lord is a simple, yet a profound, if-then statement. Our sins will be forgiven if we trust and obey. This of course is not a full and complete exegetical look at verse 18-20, but at the start of this Holy Week, the incredible fact of Isaiah and the rest of Scripture is it all points to the saving work of Christ, done on the cross, which we traditionally observe starting on Thursday with a Maundy Thursday prayer vigil (see last year) followed by Good Friday.

I AM Lenten Reader, Confession :: Lent Day 3

Day 3 :: Friday, March 11, 2011, Confession

Confession is the practice of owning up to our sin. When we confess our sin, we are agreeing with God about the gravity of sin and acknowledging that our sin has crippled our relationship with Him.

1 John 1:9 says, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Not confessing our sins causes us to deceive ourselves into thinking we are right with God. But, when we come clean about our sin before God, He will always forgive us.

Confessing the sin in our lives not only restores our relationship with God, but also reminds us of our brokenness and shows to us the power of Christ’s sacrifice in covering our sin. We have been rescued from sin, and the practice of confession reveals to us the cost of our sin.

Have you made the practice of confession a priority in your life?
What sins have you been holding on to that you need to come clean to God about?

Begin the practice of confession in your life today.

Contemplation Over Day 3

I took a quick look at this day and thought what in the world am I going to write for this day on my blog (I am keeping two separate journals for Lent by the way). I think it’s human nature to look at another person’s sin, or wonder about another person’s sin, speaking of my own (see Luke 6:42 for one). When I am sitting in a service or listening to a sermon podcast and a pastor talks about the sin in his life, the first thing I think is, “I wonder what that sin is?, he’s such a ‘good’ person”.

That’s what I’m going to do here today. I’m reminded of Matthew 6:6 (when you pray, go into a room and shut the door) where we are taught how some prayer is private, and although some sins do need confession before the Church body, today’s reading talks about our need for daily confession before God. I do think confession largely lost in our evangelical churches today. We rarely talk about it on Sunday mornings.

I know in my own life God is constantly refining my heart’s desires. Every day is a battle that started a long time ago, one where God continues to remove the blackness of my heart to replace it with clean tissue. A huge part of that comes from acknowledging our sin, repentantly confessing that sin to God, and knowing, God will forgive us when we ask.

Sins No Longer Remembered for Judgment, Romans 2

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This is my installment for the Blogger Small Group post on Romans chapter 2. There is always time for anyone to join in if they like (see Blogger Small Group Rules/Guidlelines). Right now we are a few weeks into the group, which started in James.

No need to try and catch up, just start in the same place we are and post your opinions.

A Little Background on Romans 2

This time I am going to do something a little different and instead of going verse by verse I am going to take the chapter as a whole and discuss one or two points. Romans is so packed full it is hard to even discuss a small section of it at a time and cover the details it deserves.

Romans 2 is broken up into two sections (in the NASB), The Impartiality of God, and The Jew Is condemned by the Law. Two parts of this stand out to me that I will discuss below. Judgment of our sins, and passing judgment on others.

Theme For Chapter 2

God will judge us all, the self-righteous, the religious, the un-Godly, and the Godly. This is always key for me to remember. Paul is not talking about salvation here. He is talking about sin. When it comes to the judgment of God I try to remember a basic thing, found right here in Romans 2:11-12

11For there is no partiality with God. 12 For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law;

Sins No Longer Remembered for Judgment

If you notice, there is impartiality, but with a distinction. Both the righteous and un-righteous (Believers and non-Believers) will be judged by their sins.

But, the Believers sins are washed away from the redemption of Christ. So, to me, negative judgment of sins is reserved for the unrepentant, positive judgment of your life is reserved for the repentant soul. How’s that you say?

To try and better understand it myself, I sketched this out while working through these verses. It is very simplistic, but it is what represented the ideas here, to me.

Repentant Believers sin is not seen in God’s eyes, so therefore we are not judged on life’s sins, but on what positive things we have done in our lives for Christ. How did we use our life Christ gave us for His purposes AND any un-confessed sin.
Non-repentant Unbelievers, those still trapped by sin, are judged by their sins.

This may be a little off topic of the impartiality of God, but I do believe that scripture tells us that we, as repentant Believers in Christ, will not be judged by our sins, but by our life as a follower of Christ. The first is from Psalms 103:12 when are are told that our sins are remembered no more.

Psalms 103: 12 As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He ^(A)removed our transgressions from us.

and the second is from Isaiah 1:18-19 where we are told our sins will be made white as snow

Isaiah 1:18-19 – 18 “Come now, and ^(C)let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “^(D)Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. 19 “^(E)If you consent and obey, You will ^(F)eat the best of the land;

The key of course in those two verses is that you have to ask for your sins to be forgiven. Once we do this, our sins are remembered no more and they are white as snow. This means even though WE remember our own sins, God does not. If He does not remember our sins, we will not be judged by the sins unknown.

We do have to keep in mind what the repentant sinner is in us. It isn’t saying grace before dinner. We are given examples to follow all throughout scripture in how to pray, ask for forgiveness, and repent. When researching Romans 2, one thing that came to mind was Matthew 6:14-15.

14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

There is more to God no longer remembering our sins than us just asking and moving on, when it comes to forgiveness of others. There is action involved in confessing our sins, yes, but there is a specific action involved here, for us to forgive others as well. Often times, something extremely difficult for us to do.

Passing Judgment on Others

I think with many of us this is a favorite pastime. I just recently watched a video of Loswhit (a worship leader and pastor) who did a post on the tatooe he got on the show LA Ink called YouTube Chatter where he posted some comments left for him by his viewers. These are… say it all together… judgments.

Romans 2:1 just about says it all.

1 Therefore you have ^(A)no excuse, ^(B)everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which ^(C)you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. 2 And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.

Why do we find it so necessary to judge others in this manner? We all do it in one form or another, right? Lets see.

that dress is to short to wear to church
he is a Christian, he should hang on in those places
he shouldn’t get that tattoo
he shouldn’t drink, smoke, curse, cut his hair, have long hair
that person is stupid, look at how he drives
they shouldn’t do this, they should do that

It can go on and on, but we make instantaneous judgments all the time, or at least I think I do. Paul is saying, we are going to be judged by the same standard we judge others, BUT, there is one other thing. Paul is condemning people here for not living up to God’s standard, not the standard of man we set for each other.

Summary of This Week

For me, I am glad God is an impartial God. No other human court or government can have the impartiality that God can have, and I am glad for that. I am also thankful that once we confess our sins to God, he does not remember them any more.

I know I also have to continually remind myself NOT to judge others. That is not up to me, it is up to God. By me looking upon others in judgment is to elevate myself to a God status, and I certainly don’t want that.

Other Blogs of Note

This is a powerful book, and chapter. Almost impossible to go into any great depth but I am looking forward to reading the other posts as well. See the blogs participating in the study below and make sure to leave a comment for them.

Creative Chaos 14 // Christ Became Sin For Us

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This is my post for Creative Chaos // 14 (see also guidelines) over at Ragamuffin Soul for this week. This is from a past Easter service when I was visiting a small church in Alabama.

Christ Became Sin For Us

When you walked into the sanctuary there was a huge cross with a bunch of small holes in it, front and center, larger than life. As the service and message went on we realized it was going to be part of the service itself. As the ushers walked through they gave everyone a piece of paper, a pencil, and a large nail. As the sermon went on we listened to the normal Easter scriptures and the message of how Jesus was crucified. Then the pastor asked everyone to write down their sins on the paper provided, fold it up, and then walk up to the cross one at a time and nail the paper with our sins to the cross.

I was leery at first but went along like most everyone else. One at a time, each person came up to the cross (which was very large, far taller than any of us) and took a hammer and hit the nail into the cross with the piece of paper crushed in between the nail and the cross. One at a time the cross started filling up with nails and paper. Once every one was done and we all sat back down it was an incredible site. The pastor then said, “this is what Christ did for us, he became sin”. It was a powerful site, one I won’t forget. Never before had I seen an image like this of what Christ did for us.

He didn’t just die for my sins and no one else’s, he died for all our sins, and became sin. This was only a small church, I can’t image the weight of humanities sin that was placed on Christ at the time of his crucification, incredible. One of the more memorable Easter services I have been to over the past 10-20 years, and today, it is my Creative Chaos.

Scott Fillmer

Life in Faith & Photos