Destined To Reign - Part 8 - No More Consciousness Of Sin

Dear friends,

A preacher told me once that I had to search my heart for sin and repent before I could worship the Lord. I had to bow my head and search my heart for sin. However, the more I searched, the more I felt unworthy to worship the Lord. The more I probed, the more I found, and I would start to feel too condemned to even think that I was qualified to enter His holy presence. So instead of being more conscious of the love of my Saviour, I became more and more self-conscious - more conscious of my sins, uncleanness, guilt, and unworthiness. Instead of raising my hands to praise and worship God, my hands would hang down with dejection and my head bow down with disappointment. How could I worship God? How could I have the courage and audacity to enter His courts with praise?

The idea that you have to be "right" before you could worship Jesus is misleading. The woman described in the look of Luke, chapter 7, who went to Jesus with an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, simply fell at His feet and worship Him. She washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair before anointing them with the oil. The Bible clearly records that she was a sinner, but it says nothing about searching her heart or confessing her sins before she worshipped Jesus. She worshipped Him as she was, and after that, Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."

I think the devil has tried to rob us of this tremendous truth. Whatever your need is, whether you are mired in debt, trapped in a particular sin, or fearful of your future, just go to Jesus. He is your Saviour, He is your Healer. He is your Provider. He is your peace. He is your forgiveness. He is your "I AM", which means that He is the great "I AM" for whatever situation you are facing in your life. Whatever lack you may be facing right now, He is your solution. Go to Him and worship Him just as you are, and He will meet you at your point of need.You don't have to worry about your sin because you are worshipping your Forgiver. You don't have to worry about your sickness, because you are worshipping your Healer. If you know and believe this truth, nothing can stop you from going to worship God.

The world needs to hear this truth and not be given a bunch of do's and don'ts. Preach the truth and the world will go flocking to churches for their answers. They are searching for the real thing and that's what we can offer them. The real thing is not found in the Law, People will flock to where the true gospel of Jesus is being preached - the gospel of grace, forgiveness and no more condemnation. It is time to emphasize what the Bible emphasizes. The new covenant is all about the grace of God that brings salvation. Grace is not a teaching. It is not a doctrine. It is not a topic in Bible School curricula. Grace is a person and His name is Jesus.

Understanding Holiness

Grace appeared to all men, teaching us the secret to godliness, character and holiness (Titus 2: 11-12). He showed us that it is all found in Him and His work on the cross. When you have Him, you are godly, you are made righteous, good chracter will manifest in you, and you are made holy.

What is holiness? The conventional understanding of holiness is about "doing right". The word holiness in the original Greek means "separation to God" (hagiasmos). Therefore, being holy means that you have been set apart, made uncommon from the rest of the world of unbelievers. In the old covenant, when God set the children of Israel apart from the world, He insulated them from the plagues that were brought against Egypt. God takes care of His own people. He provided for the Israelites and protected them because they were made holy and set apart unto Him by the blood of bulls and goats. How much more for us in the new covenant, who are made holy and set apart unto God forever by the blood of the everlasting sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What does this mean? Even when the world is facing a financial crisis, we will have more than enough in our storehouses. When there are all kind of pestilences, sicknesses and diseases in the world, like mad cow disease, SARS, bird flu and swine flu, we are made holy and set apart to enjoy God's protection and divine health.

God does not require you to search your heart and locate your sins before you can worship Him. When David cried out in His Psalm, "Search me, O God, and know my heart" (Psalm 139: 23), he was asking God to search him. He was not searching his heart himself. In any case, today, if God searches you, all God will find is your righteousness in Christ Jesus, for He sees you as righteous, holy and forgiven. He has already declared, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Hebrew 8: 12). How do you see yourself today? Are you more conscious of your sins, or are you more conscious of your righteousness and what the blood of Jesus has done? The Bible says, "As He is, so are we in this world" ( 1 John 4: 17). Is Jesus holy? Then, so you are!

The Sin Offering And The Burnt Offering

The book of Leviticus talks about the five offerings of the old covenant: the burnt offering, peace offering, meal offering, sin offering and trespass offering. These offerings are shadows or typologies of what our Lord Jesus accomplished when He offered His life for us on the cross. Jesus, as our sacrificial offering, did such amazing work that it takes five offerings to depict the one act of His sacrifice on the cross. Today, we will focus on two of the more important offerings - the burnt offering and the sin offering.

The Sin Offering

According to the law, a man must take a sin offering to the priest whenever he sins. Imagine that you are living in the Old Testament times. You have sinned and you are now taking a lamb as your sin offering to the priest. The priest will first examine the lamb to ensure that the lamb is perfect and without blemishes. It speaks of Jesus' perfection, as Jesus knew no sin and committed no sin. Jesus is the true sacrificial Lamb without blemish. After the examination, you must lay your hands on the head of the lamb. This is an act of identification. You are transferring your sins to the innocent lamb. Then, you must kill the lamb. The lamb must die because all your sins have been transferred to its body. And because the lamb dies bearing your sins, you can go free. In the same way, Jesus has to die on the cross with your sins so that you might go free. He was not murdered, He came to lay down His life for you and me. He chose to become our sin offering for you and me. 2 Corinthians 5: 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Do you know what this means? It means that the moment you received Jesus Christ into your life, all your sins were transferred to Jesus - forever! Jesus died in your place as your sin offering, so that you might go free. What a wonderful Saviour we have!

However, there is a big difference between the sin offering in the Old Testament and Jesus' sacrifice for you on the cross. In the Old Testament, the blood of bulls and goats could only provide a temporal covering for sin. Every time man failed, he had to offer another sin offering. Praise to God that in the new covenant, the Bible declares that "by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Hebrew 10: 14). All your sins have been removed permanently. Forever.

The Burnt Offering

The sin offering speaks of your sins being transferred to the body of Jesus on the cross. That's why God does not want you to be conscious of your sins today, but He wants you to be conscious of your forgiveness. How about the burnt offering? The burnt offering is beautiful because it speaks of the righteousness of Jesus being transferred to you at the cross. When you read the book of Leviticus, you will see that out of the five offerings, God put the sin offering last and the burnt offering first. Man puts it the other way around - we first go to God with all our sins, and all our sins are judged as a sin offering at the cross of Jesus. There is nothing wrong with this order, but God does not expect us to stop there. He wants us to know that Jesus did not just die for our sins, but He also died as our burnt offering to make us well-pleasing, righteous and favoured before God. That is why when the burnt offering is offered, it ascends as a "sweet aroma" to the Lord. The sweet aroma from the burnt offering speaks of Jesus' beauty, perfection and loveliness to the Father.

This may be the first time you are hearing all this, so let us reiterate the difference. The sin offering speaks of your sins being transferred to Jesus, while the burnt offering speaks of Jesus' worthiness before God, His acceptance before God and His delight before His Father being transferred to you. Today, God favours you in exactly the same way He favours His Son, Jesus. Unfortunately, there are believers today who understand only that they have been forgiven. They do not understand that they have been made righteous as well by the work of Jesus on the cross. Because of this, they have allowed themselves to come under condemnation. If this describes you, then rejoice - let the truth that God sees you clothed with the righteousness of His Son (because Jesus became your burnt offering at the cross), set you free today from every guilt and condemnation!

Get Rid of Any Self-Condemnation

The reason that some believers are sick, depressed and oppressed is that instead of being conscious of their righteousness in Christ, they have sin on their conscience. The moment they sin, they unconsciously feel that someone (usually themselves) must pay and be penalized. Does this decribe you? If you you are sin-conscious, whenever you sin and come under condemnation, your mind and body begin to say, "I have to pay and punish myself". Your body will respond to this need of punishment, and you may start to develop depression and sickness in your body. Many believers are sick today not because of sin, for sin has already been punished on the body of Jesus, but because of condemnation. We have talked about condemnation from the accuser before, but here we are talking about self-condemnation and your unconscious desire to inflict punishment on yourself when you know that you have sinned. Self -condemnation is destructive. When you fail to see that Jesus has already borned your punishment, you will punish yourself or take it out on your family with verbal or even physical abuse. If you believe that you deserve to be punished and that you do not deserve success, you will sub-consciously activate a self-sabotaging mechanism to punish yourself and cause yourself to fail. You could be on a brink of a lucrative business contract, or about to embark on an exciting career opportunity, but somehow you find yourself doing something that sabotages the entire deal and causes it to crumble before your eyes. Why? Because deep down you think that you do not deserve it. Self-condemnation also manifests itself with destructive effect in relationship. If you are in a wonderful relationship with somebody who really loves and cares for you, you will inevitably do something that sabotages the relationship because, again, something inside tells you that you do not deserve to be loved by this person.

Beloved, wake up and realize that Jesus has already been punished on your behalf. Stop condemning and punishing yourself because Jesus has been condemned and punished on your behalf! If you say that you believe that God has forgiven you of all your sins, then why are you still feeling guilty? The existence of guilt and condemnation in your life tells you that you do not really believe that all your sins have been forgiven. If you are believers who have the desire to glorify God, but are struggling with guilt and condemnation, you have to pay attention. If you are living in sin (as a lifestyle) and have no desire to leave this kind of lifestyle, that's a different story. You can try not to be sin-conscious all you like, but you will not succeed simply because you are living in sin (such as staying in adulterous affair with no desire to terminate it). Get out of that lifestyle of sin by the grace of God. Do you see the distinction? This message is for those who are not living in a lifestyle of sin, but has the desire to break out of the cycle of defeat of self-condemnation. This message is for those who are trapped in the lie that you do not deserve success in life, and want to stop sabotaging yourself because of guilt and condemnation. This message is for those who are not living in sin but are nevertheless struggling with sin-consciousness. This message is for those who have been robbed of the boldness to enter God's presence and worship Him because after "searching you heart" you have convinced yourself that you do not qualify. If I am describing you, my friend, I pray that today will be the day of your freedom.

Amen.

Dedo Suwanda

PS. The above message is taken from the book "Destined To Reign" by Joseph Prince