"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense -Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." (I John 2:1,2 NIV)
It is written that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Rom 3:23 NIV). Knowing that we all have sinned, what then must we do to correct the problem? How do we seek forgiveness and from whom do we seek forgiveness? What must de done to seek the forgiveness? What type of penance must we pay for forgiveness? I will attempt to answer these questions and maybe a few more that pop up into the article.
When we are living a life of lawlessness, we are sinning, for sin is lawlessness. When we disobey the commands of God, we have sinned and we must seek forgiveness. What is one of the first step towards seeking forgiveness? First is to recognize the sin and to repent from it. Repentance is something that many people tend to stumble over. Repent by definition means to turn completely away from. Figuratively it means to do a 180 degree turnaround, to go in the opposite direction. When we are able
to recognize that we have sinned, we stop, turn around, and walk away from it. Repentance is not feeling sorry that you were caught, it is feeling sorry that you did it. I believe (and this is just me, I haven’t heard anyone else express this thought) that what we call our conscience is actually the Holy Spirit working within us to convict us of the wrong that we are doing. Once we repent, we ask for forgiveness, and this is what leads us to the three aspects of forgiveness.
GOD’S FORGIVENESS
What is forgiveness? The dictionary defines forgiveness (forgive) v 1. To grant pardon for or remission of (something); cease to demand the penalty for. 2. To grant freedom from penalty to (someone) 3. To cease to blame or feel resentment against.1 (Emphasis mine) What is the penalty of sin? Death!
When God forgives us, we are no longer bound to the penalty of death. This death is not a physical death, but a spiritual death. When we recognize that we have sinned, we need to confess the sin to God, and He will forgive us. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (I John 1:9 NIV)
The real beauty of God’s forgiveness, is that once He forgives us, He will no longer remember the sin that we committed. "‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’ Then he adds: Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’" (Heb 10:16-17 NIV) My favorite analogy is this: Your life is always being captured on a VCR tape. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you think, is being recorded. When you sin, it’s caught on tape. When you confess your sin to God, He erases that part of the tape. Once it is erased, it can no longer be brought back. For further insight, open your Bible to Ezekiel 18 and read the entire chapter.
Knowing that God is just to forgive our sins, does this mean that we can continue on sinning? By no means! "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Rom 6:1,2 NIV) It is an insult and borderline blasphemy to deliberately sin against God, with the foreknowledge that He will forgive you. Again, focus on Ezekiel 18.
FORGIVENESS FOR OTHERS
"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent’, forgive him." (Luke 17:3b-4 NIV) As humans, we will fail against our fellow human. When someone sins against us, and they repent, and ask for forgiveness, we are to forgive them. Is it easy? No, it’s not. Our own instinct is to do something in return. To make them pay for the pain and anguish they caused us. We want revenge. Yet, Jesus commanded that we are to forgive them. Part of the "model prayer" states that we are to forgive others, so that we also can be forgiven (read Matthew 6:9-15).
If we don’t forgive the person, we end up carrying a burden that we can’t get rid of. We struggle through life, unaware of what is wrong. Every time we see the person, the anger that we carry, resurfaces. Our stress levels rise, and we tend to lose all sense and sensibilities with that person. That comes from not forgiving the person.
When we forgive the person, we have to no longer blame the person for what they have done. We have to cease to blame them. I know it’s tough, but it is something that has to be done. Forgiving the person means not harboring ill feelings towards them, and not bringing up the incident in a heated argument four years later. When we forgive the person, we cease to blame them for their actions. The four steps to forgiving the person is; 1. Talk it Out, 2. Work it Out, 3. Gossip Never, 4. Friends Forever. Talk to them, explain how much you were hurt. Work on the solution to the problem. Don’t talk to other people and don’t bring it up at a later time to the person. (In other words, don’t throw it back into their face the wrongs that they have done). By doing this, you will have enhanced the Kingdom of God and you will have a friend forever. Is it easy, not at all. But, it must be done.
FORGIVENESS OF YOURSELF
A couple of months ago, I had to stand before the District Board of Ministerial Development. I had to discuss everything about my call into the ministry, my strengths, my weaknesses, and my past. While discussing everything, one of them asked me the same question my dad has asked me, "Have you been able to forgive those that have sinned against you in the past?" My answer was a resounding, Yes! He looked at me and said "Good, now have you forgiven yourself for what has happened?" That question had hit me hard. Had I forgiven myself? By the time I was standing before them, I had. If I was before them, two years earlier, I could have easily said "No".
Once we have acknowledged that we are sinners and that we have disobeyed God, the feeling of disappointment, will overcome us. We now feel "unworthy" of God’s love, because we are not perfect. We start to analyze all that we had done wrong, and carry it with us. God has forgiven you, it is now time that you have forgiven you.
If you carry unforgiveness for yourself, you will find it hard to forgive others. You will find it hard to understand how others can forgive you. You will carry a burden that will weigh you down, and it will deny you the opportunity to fully understand God’s grace and forgiveness.
When God forgives us, He throws those memories in the Ocean of Forgetfulness. Why then are we rowing our boat into the middle of it, trying to dredge up the memories. We must be able to forgive ourselves of our shortcomings or we will never be able to forgive those that have sinned against us.
Forgiveness will lead us into a closer relationship with God. By asking for forgiveness, by granting forgiveness to others, we grow closer to one another and to God. When we repent from our sins, we are a new creation. The old has passed the new has come to life. Once we commit our lives to Christ, it’s time we started living like it and not like the old ways.
"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don’t forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." (Matt 6:14,15 NIV)
Have a blessed week
Daniel G Vandenburg
1. Funk and Wagnalls New International Dictionary of the English Language, Comprehensive Edition Library Guild World Publishers 1987
Monday, January 22, 2007
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
A New Creation: A Testimony
"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" (2 Cor 5:16,17)
All scripture is from the New International Version, unless otherwise stated.
With the coming of a new year, most people make a promise to better themselves (resolutions). One study showed after the first week 25% of the people have failed at their resolution. After one month 36% of the people fail. After 6 months more than 50% of the people have failed at their resolution (http://www.proactive-coach.com/resolutions/keeping.htm). Why is that? Is it that they set unreasonable goals ( I will lose 2350 lbs), have unrealistic expectations (I will save a gabazillion dollars), or have a certain weakness ( I will limit my Pepsi consumption to only 20 cans a day).
Not to brag, but I would throw off all those studies. When I have made a resolution, I have managed to keep it, not just for that year, but for a long time after. I think the last resolution I made was: I will not buy a hunk of cheese and sit down and eat it. As I am trying not to break my arm patting myself on the back, I have not bought a hunk a cheese, or any type of cheese, and sat down unwrapped it and ate it. Now, those who don’t know me, I can’t eat cheese, therefore, I have kept that resolution. I set resolutions I know I don’t do so I don’t fail.
But, why do people tend to fail. For me, the answer is simple, they do it without Jesus. We try to make ourselves better without the one who can make us better- Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus as our savior we become a new creation. The old person is dead, the new is alive. To give you an example, I will give a brief testimony of my life. For the first time, I will become vulnerable to all my readers (all 8 of you).
I was born September 17, 1971 to my parents Robert (Jack) and Trudy Vandenburg. (She’ll be happy I didn’t use her full name), in a small unknown town in Kansas. (Abilene, home of President Dwight Eisenhower and the Greyhound Hall of Fame). My parents later divorced and my pa moved to Missouri, where I would visit him and my stepmother Mary and brother David during the summers in my early childhood. I grew up with a church of Christ upbringing and Baptist upbringing in the summers.
Some studies show that if you watch a child when they are between the ages of 3 and 5, you will get a good idea on what they want to be when they grow up. When we would get home from church on Sundays, I would round up about 15-20 stuffed animals and give them a sermon. Most of the time it was the same sermon over and over, about God’s love to Daniel (imagine that) when he was in the lions den. I have always been interested in God’s word, and anytime I was at a book sale, I would inevitably find a Bible to purchase. I grew up knowing about Jesus, but not knowing Jesus.
In high school many of my friends and acquaintances assumed I was a Christian. I was always going to various church youth group activities and constantly talking to people about Jesus. I had close friends go into the ministry right out of high school. These same friends felt I should have entered into a seminary for ministerial training. This happened every year of my high school career, "Daniel, you should go to (insert name of Christian school here) and become a preacher" Even at graduation, I was given a Michael W Smith cassette. (Alisa, I still have that cassette, thanks) But I never felt the call, I knew the right words, I didn’t know the right attitude.
On the night of October 31st 1995, I went to bed. An hour and fifteen minutes after midnight I had "The Dream". I was surrounded by an army of demons and fighting them off with a staff. I would push a couple back and more would take their place. After a couple of minutes of this endless fight, a demon three times the size of the others pushed its way through the others. It knocked the staff out of my hands and thrust its hand into my chest. It grabbed my heart and started to squeeze it. While doing this, I heard a booming voice from above declare, "Change your ways or you will be dead in a year."
I immediately woke up, sweat soaked my sheets, I was breathing heavy, and my heart was racing. As I sat up, a white misty figure appeared at the corner of my bed and said, "Relax my son, I am with you now." Suddenly a wave of peace enveloped me, and I lay back down and fell asleep.
When I went to work (I worked at Hardee’s at this time), the woman I was dating at that time approached me and asked me if anything was wrong. I casually asked her what she meant, and she answered, "Daniel, you’re white as a sheet, there appears something is different." She wasn’t the only one that asked, most of the employees asked me if something was wrong, because I wasn’t my usual self. Since I was the shift supervisor that day, I sat in the office, most of the afternoon and early evening. Thankfully, the crew realized something was wrong and worked their tails off while I was struggling.
At 8 o’clock that night, I called Ken Mostue, then pastor of the Abilene Wesleyan Church, and I asked him if he was busy the next day, I had it off and wanted to talk to him. He said he didn’t have anything going on the next day and asked what it was about. I said, "I had a rough night last night and I wanted to talk to you about it, and I want to talk about Jesus and dedicating my life to Him." Ken answered, "I’ll be up right now, this is too important to wait." So I sat out in the lobby of Hardee’s from 8 until 10:30 talking about Jesus and committing my life to Him.
That night, I went to bed and had "The Dream Pt 2". Instead of fighting off demons, I was standing at a pulpit in a church. I was giving a sermon to a multitude of people. Again I heard a voice, the same as the night before, "Job well done, now I want you to lead my family." I had a restful sleep, but was at a loss of what to do. I was later baptized, and a woman in the church approached me and told me when I went under, she prayed to God to show her what He wanted for me, and she had a vision of me preaching in a church. I never told her or anyone about the other dream; that became public affirmation #1.
I became involved with various ministries throughout the church and community: Board member and later Vice President of Youth for Christ, youth leader of the Wesleyan church, voting Delegate to the General Conference, small group study leader, and various other things. I became proud and haughty. And then I had "The Fall"
In 1999, I opened my big fat mouth and inserted my foot, leading to a collapse of my spirituality. An elder in the church, was using the story of Cassie Bernall as a teaching tool. He said he wasn’t sure if he was faced with the decision she had if he would answer the same way. I stuck out my scrawny spiritual chest and said, "I would never deny Christ, I would answer yes." That was the start of the decline. After that day, my words may not have denied Christ, but my actions did. I did everything imaginable that went against Jesus’ teachings. The end result was my turning my back on God’s call and the receiving of a daughter. I felt I was no good as a minister, and useless to God. I had entered into the belly of the whale.
In 2002, I was working for the local newspaper. I was driving in the country listening to the radio station (KJRL at that time, now KJIL), I was having a rough day, everything on the radio kept making me feel worse about my situation. I kept thinking about the things I threw away, how God didn’t want me anymore, how everything was crumbling around me. Then a song on the radio came on and turned everything around for me. Richard Hayes announced the Mark Schultz song "Back In His Arms Again". After hearing it, I pulled over to the side of the road and wept. I poured out my transgressions to God and received His forgiveness. God used that song to bring me back to Him. I may have turned my back on Him, but He never turned His back on me. That night, I was talking to the woman I was involved with at that time about it, and she hunted down the CD and bought it for me, and then bought one for herself.
Throughout my journey, I have sinned against many people. I pray that they will find it in their hearts to forgive me, just as I have forgiven those that have sinned against me. I have forgiven myself for my transgressions, and I know God has forgiven me. I am now currently in classes for training as a pastor. God has blessed me greatly. If I boast now, let it be in Christ and not about me. It’s not about me anymore, it’s about Him.
I write all of this, so 1 you who read will know where I come from, 2 regardless of your paths in life, God wants to be in it and wants you to follow Him. 3 There is no such thing as sinning too much, God has a plan for you, stop doing things by yourself and turn to Him for help. And 4 God is just to forgive your sins when you truly repent and turn to Him.
I am a new creation. The old Daniel is dead. I am not the same as I was in 1971, 1987, 1995, 1999, 2002, 2006. I am constantly growing and learning. The Daniel of 1995 no longer exists. The Daniel of 2002 no longer exists. I am the Daniel of 2007.
If you have not yet made the decision to have Jesus as your savior, I urge you to make that your new years resolution. Resolve to make Jesus your personal savior, the sooner the better. Scripture is clear: We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) and The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23). The first couple of steps are simple believe and confess. "But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart’, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord', and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.’" (Rom 10:8-11) Once you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it’s time to start living like it. Don’t rely on yourself to conquer your addictions and problems, ask God to help you with them. Don’t be afraid to contact a local pastor, a local believer, or even me, I am here to help.
Jesus is Lord
Have a blessed and wonderful year
Daniel G Vandenburg
All scripture is from the New International Version, unless otherwise stated.
With the coming of a new year, most people make a promise to better themselves (resolutions). One study showed after the first week 25% of the people have failed at their resolution. After one month 36% of the people fail. After 6 months more than 50% of the people have failed at their resolution (http://www.proactive-coach.com/resolutions/keeping.htm). Why is that? Is it that they set unreasonable goals ( I will lose 2350 lbs), have unrealistic expectations (I will save a gabazillion dollars), or have a certain weakness ( I will limit my Pepsi consumption to only 20 cans a day).
Not to brag, but I would throw off all those studies. When I have made a resolution, I have managed to keep it, not just for that year, but for a long time after. I think the last resolution I made was: I will not buy a hunk of cheese and sit down and eat it. As I am trying not to break my arm patting myself on the back, I have not bought a hunk a cheese, or any type of cheese, and sat down unwrapped it and ate it. Now, those who don’t know me, I can’t eat cheese, therefore, I have kept that resolution. I set resolutions I know I don’t do so I don’t fail.
But, why do people tend to fail. For me, the answer is simple, they do it without Jesus. We try to make ourselves better without the one who can make us better- Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus as our savior we become a new creation. The old person is dead, the new is alive. To give you an example, I will give a brief testimony of my life. For the first time, I will become vulnerable to all my readers (all 8 of you).
I was born September 17, 1971 to my parents Robert (Jack) and Trudy Vandenburg. (She’ll be happy I didn’t use her full name), in a small unknown town in Kansas. (Abilene, home of President Dwight Eisenhower and the Greyhound Hall of Fame). My parents later divorced and my pa moved to Missouri, where I would visit him and my stepmother Mary and brother David during the summers in my early childhood. I grew up with a church of Christ upbringing and Baptist upbringing in the summers.
Some studies show that if you watch a child when they are between the ages of 3 and 5, you will get a good idea on what they want to be when they grow up. When we would get home from church on Sundays, I would round up about 15-20 stuffed animals and give them a sermon. Most of the time it was the same sermon over and over, about God’s love to Daniel (imagine that) when he was in the lions den. I have always been interested in God’s word, and anytime I was at a book sale, I would inevitably find a Bible to purchase. I grew up knowing about Jesus, but not knowing Jesus.
In high school many of my friends and acquaintances assumed I was a Christian. I was always going to various church youth group activities and constantly talking to people about Jesus. I had close friends go into the ministry right out of high school. These same friends felt I should have entered into a seminary for ministerial training. This happened every year of my high school career, "Daniel, you should go to (insert name of Christian school here) and become a preacher" Even at graduation, I was given a Michael W Smith cassette. (Alisa, I still have that cassette, thanks) But I never felt the call, I knew the right words, I didn’t know the right attitude.
On the night of October 31st 1995, I went to bed. An hour and fifteen minutes after midnight I had "The Dream". I was surrounded by an army of demons and fighting them off with a staff. I would push a couple back and more would take their place. After a couple of minutes of this endless fight, a demon three times the size of the others pushed its way through the others. It knocked the staff out of my hands and thrust its hand into my chest. It grabbed my heart and started to squeeze it. While doing this, I heard a booming voice from above declare, "Change your ways or you will be dead in a year."
I immediately woke up, sweat soaked my sheets, I was breathing heavy, and my heart was racing. As I sat up, a white misty figure appeared at the corner of my bed and said, "Relax my son, I am with you now." Suddenly a wave of peace enveloped me, and I lay back down and fell asleep.
When I went to work (I worked at Hardee’s at this time), the woman I was dating at that time approached me and asked me if anything was wrong. I casually asked her what she meant, and she answered, "Daniel, you’re white as a sheet, there appears something is different." She wasn’t the only one that asked, most of the employees asked me if something was wrong, because I wasn’t my usual self. Since I was the shift supervisor that day, I sat in the office, most of the afternoon and early evening. Thankfully, the crew realized something was wrong and worked their tails off while I was struggling.
At 8 o’clock that night, I called Ken Mostue, then pastor of the Abilene Wesleyan Church, and I asked him if he was busy the next day, I had it off and wanted to talk to him. He said he didn’t have anything going on the next day and asked what it was about. I said, "I had a rough night last night and I wanted to talk to you about it, and I want to talk about Jesus and dedicating my life to Him." Ken answered, "I’ll be up right now, this is too important to wait." So I sat out in the lobby of Hardee’s from 8 until 10:30 talking about Jesus and committing my life to Him.
That night, I went to bed and had "The Dream Pt 2". Instead of fighting off demons, I was standing at a pulpit in a church. I was giving a sermon to a multitude of people. Again I heard a voice, the same as the night before, "Job well done, now I want you to lead my family." I had a restful sleep, but was at a loss of what to do. I was later baptized, and a woman in the church approached me and told me when I went under, she prayed to God to show her what He wanted for me, and she had a vision of me preaching in a church. I never told her or anyone about the other dream; that became public affirmation #1.
I became involved with various ministries throughout the church and community: Board member and later Vice President of Youth for Christ, youth leader of the Wesleyan church, voting Delegate to the General Conference, small group study leader, and various other things. I became proud and haughty. And then I had "The Fall"
In 1999, I opened my big fat mouth and inserted my foot, leading to a collapse of my spirituality. An elder in the church, was using the story of Cassie Bernall as a teaching tool. He said he wasn’t sure if he was faced with the decision she had if he would answer the same way. I stuck out my scrawny spiritual chest and said, "I would never deny Christ, I would answer yes." That was the start of the decline. After that day, my words may not have denied Christ, but my actions did. I did everything imaginable that went against Jesus’ teachings. The end result was my turning my back on God’s call and the receiving of a daughter. I felt I was no good as a minister, and useless to God. I had entered into the belly of the whale.
In 2002, I was working for the local newspaper. I was driving in the country listening to the radio station (KJRL at that time, now KJIL), I was having a rough day, everything on the radio kept making me feel worse about my situation. I kept thinking about the things I threw away, how God didn’t want me anymore, how everything was crumbling around me. Then a song on the radio came on and turned everything around for me. Richard Hayes announced the Mark Schultz song "Back In His Arms Again". After hearing it, I pulled over to the side of the road and wept. I poured out my transgressions to God and received His forgiveness. God used that song to bring me back to Him. I may have turned my back on Him, but He never turned His back on me. That night, I was talking to the woman I was involved with at that time about it, and she hunted down the CD and bought it for me, and then bought one for herself.
Throughout my journey, I have sinned against many people. I pray that they will find it in their hearts to forgive me, just as I have forgiven those that have sinned against me. I have forgiven myself for my transgressions, and I know God has forgiven me. I am now currently in classes for training as a pastor. God has blessed me greatly. If I boast now, let it be in Christ and not about me. It’s not about me anymore, it’s about Him.
I write all of this, so 1 you who read will know where I come from, 2 regardless of your paths in life, God wants to be in it and wants you to follow Him. 3 There is no such thing as sinning too much, God has a plan for you, stop doing things by yourself and turn to Him for help. And 4 God is just to forgive your sins when you truly repent and turn to Him.
I am a new creation. The old Daniel is dead. I am not the same as I was in 1971, 1987, 1995, 1999, 2002, 2006. I am constantly growing and learning. The Daniel of 1995 no longer exists. The Daniel of 2002 no longer exists. I am the Daniel of 2007.
If you have not yet made the decision to have Jesus as your savior, I urge you to make that your new years resolution. Resolve to make Jesus your personal savior, the sooner the better. Scripture is clear: We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) and The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23). The first couple of steps are simple believe and confess. "But what does it say? ‘The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart’, that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord', and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.’" (Rom 10:8-11) Once you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it’s time to start living like it. Don’t rely on yourself to conquer your addictions and problems, ask God to help you with them. Don’t be afraid to contact a local pastor, a local believer, or even me, I am here to help.
Jesus is Lord
Have a blessed and wonderful year
Daniel G Vandenburg
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