To all the Saints…
Newsletter Article
January 2003
To all the Saints in Crossties,
How many of you reading this are saints?? Col 1:10-14 says “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. ”
Now for us to qualify to share in the inheritance of the saints, don’t we have to be a saint ourselves? In several places in the scripture, we are referred to as saints. Do you feel like a saint? The thing that God has been pressing on to my heart this week is the fact that we are saints and often don’t feel like it. I think that this is because we have things in our lives that separate us from God and put space between us and Him. The focus I want to take this month is that we don’t have anything separating us from God as long as we are confessing our sins. In 1John 1:9 it says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Now we are forgiven but we don’t forget the sin, do we? Praise God that He does forget.
Psalm 103:8-12 says “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west , so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
That is pretty far, isn’t it. We can go North on this earth and eventually end up going South, can’t we. But if we travel East, we will be going East until we stop. We will never end up going West. Did you ever think about that? This is how from our sins (transgressions) are removed from us.
Hebrews 10:15-17 says “The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “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 .”
The Spirit of God says to us that He will remember our sins NO MORE. When we confess sins to God He will forgive us our sins and He will remember them no more. If we pray to God about a sin we confessed yesterday, the bible says that He doesn’t even know what we are talking about. He has forgotten it. How can that be? If God is perfect, doesn’t He have a perfect memory? I guess He does but He has chosen to forget and He can do that perfectly too.
We cannot understand all of God’s ways. If we could, we would be God and well, we are not. I don’t pretend to understand all of this but I know it is true because of what God says in His word.
This is what God has been telling me this month and I believe that He wanted me to encourage you to confess your sins to Him so He can forget them. Then we can go out as the saints we are and do the work He has given us to do.
I closing, I want to send my greetings to all the saints in Christ Jesus, especially those in Crossties. Praise Him that He remembers not our sins but sees us through the blood of Jesus Christ who has washed us as clean as snow.
Greet each other as saints the next time you meet and encourage one another in His Name.
Your fellow servant (and saint) in Christ,
Jerry Robertson
Chaplain