Forgiveness of Sins
“But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”
He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
Mark 2:10-11
The first thing God wants to do for us is to give us his gift of grace and forgiveness. Even among the people of God, I find a lot of people who live with great guilt. We will never develop into what God wants us to be until we find out what it means to have God’s forgiveness.
That forgiveness is a gracious gift that we can never earn. In fact, there is nothing we can do to receive it except to take it from his hand in repentant faith. When we have accepted his gift, we are on our way to grace and growth.
The story of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof illustrates this beautifully. This man’s friends brought him to Jesus for physical healing, but Jesus knew what the man’s real need was, so he said to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Everyone thought Jesus was sidetracked from the real issue of physical healing, but Jesus was the only one who saw the problem clearly.
The forgiveness of our sins is the doorway into a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Tragically, I have seen some people who cannot accept this gift. But we will never know any further growth or grace until we can say that our sins are nailed to his cross and that we are forgiven and free.
This is an excerpt from a book This Day with the Master by Dennis Kinslaw. If you would like to buy this book please click here.