Greetings dear friend, welcome back, so nice to be ministering to you today!
We have been studying three amazing things that God’s power has accomplished for us, from Colossians 1:12-14. Let’s remind ourselves of what they are:
Colossians 1:12-14 ISV and might thank the Father, who has enabled us to share in the saints' inheritance in the light. (13) God has rescued us from the power of darkness and has brought us into the kingdom of the Son whom he loves, (14) through whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
God has given us an inheritance (Colossians 1:12).
God has delivered us from the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13).
God has redeemed us: forgiven our sins (Colossians 1:14).
In previous lessons, we examined the multifaceted inheritance God has given us and then saw that God has delivered us from the power of darkness. Today we want to see that God has redeemed us, and forgiven our sins.
You know, the world we live in today talks much about our need to forgive others: that it’s a choice, that refusing to forgive causes spiritual, mental, emotional and even physical problems.
Yes, we need to forgive, it’s important.
But there’s something that needs to happen before we can truly forgive others from our heart. Dr. Karl Menninger once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day! -Today in the Word, March 1989, p. 8.
You see, in order for us to forgive others, we must see that we have been redeemed and that we have been forgiven. That way we can forgive willingly from the heart.
I love how the Bible always shows us what has been done for us before teaching us what we need to do. In this case, we are shown that at the cross of Jesus Christ He forgave all our sins, and then we are instructed to “forgive, as we have been forgiven” (Ephesians 4:32).
Oh, how important this subject of forgiveness is. It’s the heart cry of every human being on earth to know that God sees their sin, all of it, yet forgives it all. Untold millions need to hear of their forgiveness, indeed, the whole world is longing to hear it, if they could but express it.
There's a story told of a Spanish father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper.
The ad read:“Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father.”
On Saturday 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers. -Bits & Pieces, October 15, 1992, pp. 13.
Yes, the world longs to know that God the heavenly Father has forgiven them, has cleared their record, has done away with their offenses, has canceled their guilt.
To not know this, to not experience the reality that we are forgiven can leave us in a black hole, depressed beyond all ability to surface. For if we do not truly believe that our sins are forgiven then they can be the greatest eclipse of all light, the heaviest weight on our shoulders, the deepest abyss into which we sink. Our sins would feel as though they are choking the very life out of us.
I was years and years in a spiritual dark hole, under a black cloud, my sins having nearly choked out my life. This passage describes me perfectly, “Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor; they fell down, with none to help” (Psalm 107:10-12).
Question 1. In Psalm 107:10-12, what is the stated purpose as to why the people sat in darkness and the shadow of death, and why they had become prisoners in affliction?
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Question 2. Have you known the power of sin, how it thoroughly depresses us and puts us “in darkness and in the shadow of death”?
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David writes, "In my depression I did not look to God for answers to my situation. I turned to booze as my comfort but all it did was create more problems."
Tori writes, "Yes! 1000%. God at the moment is clearing a long time standing habitual sin in my life and he has been displaying to me its power, how it robs and puts me into so much darkness, depression and distance from God."
Carnell writes, "Sin keeps you longer than you want to be kept. It causes a deep emotion of depression. It is like a dark cloud over you. My problem was I stopped looking toward God and started focusing on my problem."