ICS Daily Devotions
Our Sins Are Forgiven
Eph 1:7 IN HIM we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
What a spiritual blessing for us that we have the forgiveness of sins in Him. Consider the sacrifice of sins performed by Cain and Abel. Abel carried out God’s instruction and was accepted by God. Abel did it by faith that the blood of the animal would cover his sins from God. In Him, we have redemption through His blood. Redemption is the payment of a price, buying back or delivering one from a situation from which one is powerless to liberate themselves from or for which the penalty was so costly that they could never hope to pay the ransom price. In other words, the idea of redemption is deliverance and release by payment of a ransom.
We need to come before God and believe by faith that our sins are all forgiven because of the redemption through His blood. We were bought back by His blood. The ransom was paid in full! The ultimate sacrifice is the blood of Jesus that was offered up once and for all and it satisfied the judgment and wrath of God. Therefore, it is written in this verse very clearly, it is in Him, His blood covers and washed us clean. We are hidden in Him!
When you are born-again, your sins are forgiven. They are totally gone. Under the Old Testament, sins were covered over, they were atoned for, but they could never be washed away. Now in the New Testament, the blood of Jesus has power to wash you clean from sin.
Hebrews 8:12-13 “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
The blood of Jesus established through the new covenant washed away our sins completely and caused us to have a clear conscience by doing what the sacrificial system could not do in eradicating our sins from us. When Christ completed the redemptive work, the sacrificial system became obsolete. In fact, the offering of Christ blood is so complete that we cannot even compare ourselves with Abel’s offering of the animal because his offering cover the sin only but Christ’s blood removed it completely. Therefore, we are righteous and blameless in God’s sight!
We can have a clean conscience because of the blood of Christ that washed all our past away. Stop allowing those thoughts that condemned you based on the past but to rest on the completed work of Christ and draw near to God.
Acts 23:1 Then Paul, looking earnestly at the council, said, “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.”
The Apostle Paul is able to say with boldness that he has a good conscience before God in spite of the fact that he was the one who persecuted the Christians and saw Stephen being stoned to death while he held on to the coats of those who killed Stephen. It is possible purely because he fully understood the power of Jesus’ redemptive blood and he is in Christ.
Hebrews 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Can you release your past to God if God has already forgiven you of the wrongs? He remembers it no more. Act and behave in line with the positional truth having victory over sin and boldness to approach God. It is based on the truth that we are in Christ. We are blessed, we are chosen, we are adopted as sons, we are without blame, we are righteous, we are holy, we are accepted, we are redeemed by His blood, we have the forgiveness of sins and the riches of His grace is towards us! Glory be to God. Nothing of ourselves but all about what Christ has done for us.
Sermon Series: Our Identity in Christ
