Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries |
The will of God that most believers resist. Knowing no man after the flesh. Part 9.
Friday, October 23, 2009
You will have the attitude or the mind of Christ toward God, toward yourself and toward others.
PHI 2:5, have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
PHI 2:5, Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:] (AMP)
PHI 2:5, Let the same disposition be in you which was in Christ Jesus. (Weymouth)
PHI 2:5, the attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:
What is your attitude toward yourself?
1CO 15:10, By the grace of God I am what I am
Is it self-condemnation as we are warned against in ROM 8:1; 1JO 3:20.
If it is 1CO 15:10, By the grace of God I am what I am,
then 2CO 5:17 will be an accepted fact, you will believe that you are a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
If not, then self-condemnation and guilt will result.
EPH 4:32, And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
As new creatures in Christ we are to think with the divine viewpoint of
COL 3:13, bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
The Bible doesn’t have much to say about forgiving yourself but it does imply that we all need to believe that we have been forgiven by God.
MAT 18:35, “So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”
God told the prophet Hosea to marry a woman named Gomer, who God knew would be unfaithful to Hosea.
The Book of Hosea focuses on God’s and Hosea’s frustration in having an unfaithful wife when neither did anything to deserve the unfaithfulness.
The Bible implies, but does not explicitly state, that the issue is not God’s inability to forgive but His people’s inability to forgive themselves for their own unfaithfulness that is the problem.
You cannot receive love until you first learn to love and forgive yourself.
Once Gomer succeeds in forgiving herself, she frees herself to experience Hosea’s love and to be faithful to him.
The Bible indicates that experiencing forgiveness is transforming and causes us to love more deeply.
LUK 7:47, “For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
Until we forgive ourselves, we will focus upon our sorrow, regret and shame.
By forgiving ourselves, we free ourselves to love and receive God’s love.
We also free ourselves to receive the love of others.
1TI 1:15 The saying is sure and true and worthy of full and universal acceptance, that Christ Jesus (the Messiah) came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost.
1TI 1:16 But I obtained mercy for the reason that in me, as the foremost [of sinners], Jesus Christ might show forth and display all His perfect long-suffering and patience.
for an example to [encourage] those who would thereafter believe on Him for [the gaining of] eternal life.
A lot of the wonderful scriptures on God’s forgiveness were written by Paul in the New Testament. In the Old Testament many were written by David.
They were once murderers. Paul was instrumental in the stoning of Steven and in terrorizing the early church.
David engineered the murder of an innocent man, Uriah, so that he could add Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, to his many other ones.
If your past is not as tainted as Paul’s or David’s then it is not fair on yourself to harbor guilt and self-condemnation.
Even if it was as tainted or worse off, you’d still be able to receive God’s forgiveness.
For He forgives all (not some of) of our iniquity (Psalms 103:1-3).