Total Forgiveness: Achieving God's Greatest Challenge

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darkness came over the whole land’ (v.33). Jesus cried out, ‘ Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ (v.34a). Mark retains the original Aramaic words of Jesus, which mean, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (v.34b). As we have seen, this is a quote from Psalm 22, which ends with a great victory (see BiOY Day 46). You may need to do this for therapeutic reasons, but only to one person who in turn will never reveal your heart. Otherwise, do not mention it; refuse to tell anybody. This book is something I would NOT recommend to anyone who wants to learn how to react in some of the tough situations we find in life. It is a book which teaches cowardice and passivity. People who follow this kind of teaching will never know about courage and confrontation which is a necessary part of life. This book and similar books can be blamed as one of the reasons why so many spiritual people end up confused and unable to do what is right according to the time and the season. There is a time for everything under the sun, so don't think that this book is an answer to the bible. Its so easy to cop out and follow what would seem to be "spiritual" and "the way that seems right" so go ahead and follow the writer blindly if you do not care to investigate a matter fully or do not want to know anything outside of a bubble people have created. Guilt is most painful, and we can easily punish people by sending them on a "guilt trip." Never do that. Remember that Jesus doesn't want us to feel guilty. When we are going to be Jesus to another, then we will not want them to be angry with themselves. "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (Luke 6:31).

So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. 40 On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees —and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 41 Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters 43 so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”As C.S. Lewis pointed out, ‘To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.’ As far as forgiving yourself is concerned, he wrote, ‘If God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him.’ Bible Verses About Forgiveness - Read Scriptures that offer biblical guidance on forgiveness and how important it is to forgive others as we have been forgiven by the blood of Christ. With the grace and mercy shown to us, we are always able to start new with God. When we repent, we are given full forgiveness of our sins because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our text also eliminates the practice of penance. Not to be confused with penitence (a synonym for repentance), penance is the Catholic teaching that certain good deeds prescribed by the church will make satisfaction for sins and thus lessen time in purgatory. Sometimes this is coupled with indulgences, which supposedly remove the guilt or punishment of temporal sins. DELIGHT. This takes desire a step further. It is when you love doing it! You get joy from praying for and blessing your enemies.

Note that the author attributes Jeremiah’s prophecy to the Holy Spirit, who inspires all Scripture (10:15). He paraphrases (perhaps from memory) what he had earlier cited (8:11-12) from Jeremiah 31:33-34, because this quote gives God’s own testimony to what the author has been arguing. God promises to put His laws upon His peoples’ hearts and to write them on their minds (10:16). The author may have cited this part of the new covenant promise to preempt any criticism from a Jewish reader to the effect that the setting aside of the Law (10:9) would lead to lawless living. “Not so! God’s people are marked by obedience from the heart.” Through Jesus, God has made total forgiveness available to you and me. In this psalm, we see the huge difference that God’s forgiveness makes. All of these phrases add up to news that sounds too good to be true, and yet is true: In Christ we receive a complete, final, once for all pardon for all of our sins, past, present, and future! We’re prone to say, “What’s the catch?” There’s no such thing as an absolutely free lunch, but there is such a thing as God’s absolutely free pardon from all of our sins. It is totally free to us, because Christ bore the awful penalty that we deserved to pay. The Lord said to Moses, 24 “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. 25 Do not do any of your ordinary work, but present a food offering to the Lord. ’” The Day of Atonement

Through Christ’s obedience to God’s will at the cross, new covenant believers receive what those under the Law could not receive: Total forgiveness. If the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches would accept the message of our text, they would do away with the doctrine of purgatory, which is not in the Bible anyway. Purgatory is supposed to be a place where, after death, our remaining sins are purged away. Supposedly, the friends and loved ones of the deceased person can pay to have masses or prayers said on their behalf to shorten the time in purgatory. What a blatant denial of the gospel of God’s grace in Christ! If His death places us in perfect standing with God, purgatory is a lie! Another ridiculous contradiction is in regards to keeping someone else's sin a secret. I understand that we shouldn't hold the threat of exposure over someone's head as a vengeful punishment. But if we allow an offender to re-write history he essentially retracts his confession, and therefor also retracts his repentance, and we've done him a terrible wrong, enabling instead of empowering. Yet at various points throughout the book the author emphasizes saving face, giving dignity (or the appearance of integrity), and acting as if nothing has happened, to the extent that I wonder if he's afraid his own dark secret(s) will be revealed and shred his ego. In 10:5-7, the author puts a quote from Psalm 40:6-8 (LXX) in the mouth of Jesus as He comes into this world. This assumes the preexistence of Jesus Christ as eternal God. There is a difficulty in that the Hebrew of this psalm reads, “My ears You have opened,” whereas the LXX translated it, “A body You have prepared for Me.” Apparently the Greek translators rendered an interpretive paraphrase of the Hebrew text, using a part and expanding it into the whole (F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Eerdmans], p. 232). “To dig out an ear” (the literal Hebrew) is a part of God’s fashioning a whole body out of clay. It does not refer to the master boring the servant’s ear with an awl (Exod. 21:6; Deut. 15:17). Rather, the picture is that of God’s opening the ear of His servant so that He would be obedient to the cross (Isa. 50:5ff.). The LXX rendering puts the emphasis on God’s preparing a body for Jesus that He would offer as the suitable sacrifice for our sins, thus supplanting the Old Testament sacrifices. These verses (10:5-10) make three points: A. The cross was the direct will of God. We see in the Old Testament how seriously sin is taken. It is not a trivial matter. And forgiveness is not to be taken for granted.