FORGIVEN | Living In The Balance Of Grace And Faith By Andrew Wommack

FORGIVEN

God manifested His love toward us in that He died for us while we were yet sinners. (Rom. 5:8.) Yet through religion, the devil has convinced us that God’s love, acceptance, and favor toward us is tied to our works and performance. You believe God exists. You know He is able. You just doubt His willingness to move in your behalf because you feel condemned over your sins.

For more on this subject, read these books: The War Is Over, Redemption, and Spirit, Soul & Body. They all deal with these truths more thoroughly than I’m able to here.

Most people think that God offers you forgiveness of all your sins committed up until the time you become born again. When you accept Jesus, your past sins are forgiven, but then every sin you commit after that has to be dealt with, repented of, and put back under the blood. There are primarily two versions of this. The extreme version says that if you have a sin in your life that isn’t confessed and you were to die in a car wreck before you got that sin confessed, you would go to hell. Even though you might have been born again for twenty years, if you have an unconfessed sin in your life when you die, you go to hell. You lose your salvation even though you’ve walked with God for many years. Most Christians

believe a lesser interpretation of the same principle. They say that God won’t answer your prayer, fellowship with, or use you if there’s any sin in your life. Both versions of this are wrong.

MISSING THE MARK

According to Hebrews 9, 10, and 12, God forgave all of your sins—past, present, and future. Even sins you haven’t committed yet have already been forgiven. Your salvation, God’s love for you, His willingness to use you and answer your prayers are not dependent upon you getting every sin confessed. If it were, the moment you became born again you should hope to die immediately because that’s the only way you could be certain of going to heaven. If this line of thinking were true, you could never walk in the joy of the Lord. Why? Because sin isn’t only the wrong things you do. The Bible says:

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

James 4:17

Sin is also what you should be doing but you’re failing to do.

Every believer should love their spouse the way that Christ loved the Church. You might be doing better at loving your spouse than you’ve ever done, but you aren’t doing it perfectly. Every believer is supposed

to reverence their spouse the way that the Church should.

Confess means to acknowledge your sin to God.[1] You’re saying, “God, You were right. I was wrong. I turn from this sin.” By confessing and repenting, you’re closing the door on the devil. You’re also drawing out into your flesh (body and soul) the righteousness and holiness that already exist in your born-again spirit. This will drive Satan out of your life. Even though you gave the devil a legal right to come into your life by yielding to sin, when you confess, repent, and turn from it, you give this power that is located in your spirit the ability to come out and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

NEVER FLUCTUATED

First John 1:9 doesn’t mean that you must confess every sin in order to have relationship with God. That would be impossible. You don’t even realize every time you sin! If I’ve rubbed some of your religious traditions the wrong way, you may be sinning against me right now. You could be thinking some evil thoughts toward me. But whether you like it or not, I’m your brother in the Lord. Who knows, perhaps we’ll be neighbors in heaven. If you’re hating me in your heart, the Bible says that you are guilty of murder. (1 John 3:15.)

You can’t live this way. Even if you aren’t offended at

me, some day you’ll be offended with someone. Thinking that you have to keep everything confessed in order to be right with God puts the burden of salvation on you. You might as well try to save yourself. No, there’s only one Savior, and you’re not Him! Jesus died for all of your sins— past, present, and even future sins. You are forgiven.

You need to understand that there’s nothing you’ve done that made God love you. There’s nothing you can do that will make God not love you. He is love. (1 John 4:8.) However, there are lots of things you can do that will keep you from full understanding of the truth. Sin will make you spiritually retarded. Your heart will become hardened, cold, insensitive, unyielding, and unfeeling toward God. (Heb. 3:13.)

Sin isn’t smart. It’s foolish. It’s an emotional response. When you sin, you put blinders on. You can’t see or perceive. You become dull and lose your perception. Yes, sin has consequences. But God is a Spirit, and He’s looking at you in the spirit. (John 4:24.) Even when you’ve sinned and given Satan an inroad into your life, God’s love for you has never fluctuated. He loves you just as much as He ever did. He doesn’t love you because you’re lovely. He loves you because He is love.

SOBER, RIGHTEOUS, AND HOLY

You may be thinking that I’m encouraging you to sin. No, I’m not! I hate sin. You can’t say, “Andrew, you

preach grace because it allows you to go live in sin.” I’ve lived holier accidentally than most people have ever lived on purpose. My standard of holiness is much stricter than the vast majority of people. A true understanding of God’s grace does not encourage sin.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.

Titus 2:11-12

The grace of God teaches you to live a sober, righteous, and holy life. The grace of God hasn’t caused me to go live in sin. You’re mistaken if you think that I’m encouraging people to live in sin. I’m encouraging people to understand that God’s love for them is unconditional. And if you ever get a revelation of that, you’ll serve God more accidentally than you ever have on purpose.