You Don’t Own Your Sin
I was thinking about several things the other day and was jumping from thought to thought. After awhile, I found myself thinking about Christ and the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) slogan. As I thought about that, I realized that to be able to answer the WWJD question, you really have to know the answer to another slogan you sometimes see, WDJD (What Did Jesus Do). So I began to think about how much I really knew about Jesus and what He did. I know a lot of what He did while here on earth …
He died on the cross for our sins
He rose from the dead
He ascended into heaven
He is alive today.
But as I thought more about WDJD and what He did on the cross something struck me that I had not really thought about before or at least not in the way that the Holy Spirit was now showing me … that something, was Forgiveness. God’s Word tells us that we should confess our sins and ask for God’s forgiveness which means to literally turn from your ways.
Forgiveness is the exchange of our sin for God’s grace and the cleansing or renewing that we receive through that exchange / transaction.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. - Romans 6: 6-7
There is no cost, on our part, for the exchange, it is a free gift.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord - Romans 6:23
Yet so many of us have such a difficult time asking God for His forgiveness, even more so asking Him to take our sin from us.
We know that Christ died on the cross to pay the price for our sin, payment in full (atonement
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world - 1 John 2:2.
He died for every one of our shortfalls, all of our mistakes, for every time we put something before God and for all the other things that we do that displeases God
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - Romans 3:23.
This is where my eyes where opened to see this wonderful truth in a new light. Jesus paid for all of our sins …
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him - Hebrews 9:24-28
Therefore, Jesus owns all of our sin. We own the choice to sin and the consequences thereof, but the sin itself is his, he paid for it, not to make him sinful but to be canceled, forgiven by the payment he made. And to make things even better, there is only one thing remaining to complete the ‘transaction’ … we have to give Him what is rightfully His.
You have no right to your sin because it does not belong to you.
What you do have is something that belongs to Christ and He so much wants to take that sin from you and nail it to the cross with the words ‘Paid in Full’ stamped across it.
When I thought more about this, I realized that when I went before God to ask for forgiveness, I was doing it as if I were initiating the ‘transaction’. The truth is by bringing my sin to Him I am not initiating but, rather completing the ‘transaction’.
I am delivering to Jesus Christ what He already paid for with his blood.
There is no wondering if His grace will be sufficient this time because His grace is sufficient for ALL times. I guess you can say that you are not going before God asking Him to take your sin rather you are humbly going before God to thank Him for taking your sin.
My friend, don’t hold onto that sin any longer, know that it is already paid for and all you have to do is deliver it to Christ. All you have to do is complete the ‘transaction’
Exchange your sin for God’s grace and forgiveness.
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Romans 10:9,10
