Believing in God’s Love
The ABCs of making a covenant with God begins with “Admitting” our sins. The B in our ABC’s of making a covenant is this - “Believe” His love.
Not Knowing Who God Is
A young man whose mother died when him and his brother were young tells this story: After a while father brought home a new wife. We never took the trouble to find out what she was like; we had made up our minds that we hated her. We treated her badly. Once in a while father found it out, then he punished us, and so severely that we were sorry for what we had done and resolved to behave ourselves. But we never knew what repentance meant till we saw her real, noble self and learned to love her. That was repentance that cut to the quick.”
It’s the same with repentance toward God. A lot of the time we make up our minds about who God is, and that keeps us from him. But when we see his great love and his true attitude towards us, and we learn that he loves us, we can truly give our lives to him.
Josiah found this out! When he admitted the sin of Israel, God spoke to him through a prophet and said: “Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before God when you heard what he spoke against this place and its people, and because you humbled yourself before me and tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the LORD.” (2 Chronicles 34:27 NIV)
God heard him. He loved him. He reached out to him in kindness when he humbly admitted his sin to God.
Jesus’ Offering of Forgiveness
And you know what, Jesus takes this even further. At the last supper, Jesus made a new covenant. And he did it by taking the cup and blessing it and saying “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Matt 26:27-28
He offers love. He offers grace. He offers mercy. He offers forgiveness of sins. Those sins that we admitted - Jesus offers full pardon, full forgiveness of those, if we believe in Him and His love.
The Jailer Who Believed
It reminds me of the story of Paul and Silas in prison in Acts 16. A violent earthquake shook the earth, the prison doors flew open, and the jailer woke up and was about to kill himself because he knew he was about to lose his job. But Paul intervened and eventually this man said to them “What must I do to be saved?” You kno what they said, in Acts 16:31? “BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved"“!
BELIEVE. In other words, believe that what Jesus did on the cross - dying for your sins in your place - is sufficient to grant you forgiveness of sins. Believe that what HE did, not what you’ve done, is what qualifies you in God’s eyes.
Believe in this! Believe that God so loved you that he sent his only son, so that when you die one day you don’t have to perish but can have eternal life. But you gotta believe!
And so will you do it today? Admit your sins, and then believe that Christ had died in your place, and put your faith in Him.
