REDEEMED INTO DESTINY
PT 2
IF GOD DOES NOT FORSAKE, SHOULD WE?
God will not abandon the destiny He has chosen for you. If you believe Him, He can bring it to pass. Actually, in the fields of redemption, God has planned an even greater destiny for you. God will get you past the sin, past the shame, past the condemnation. What greater words could Jesus have chosen when He said, “I did not come to condemn you” (John 3:17)? How beautiful. Condemnation is what we deserve; grace is what we got.
God is not a forsaker. God’s testimony is the beauty His grace produces when your best efforts fall into ruin. Satan would sift Simon. Simon would fail; he would sin. In his estimation, he would be incurable; however, Jesus would convert him. Jesus will restore and bring him into the destiny he did not deserve.
That’s it. We don’t deserve the goodness God wants to show us. But this is what sets God apart from all others. He is good and forgiving. When He should give up on us, He does not. When Israel constantly rebelled against God and turned to serve idol gods, the Lord maintained His faithfulness, “According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not” (Haggai 2:5).
These ungrateful slaves who received a gracious deliverance out of Egypt could do nothing but complain and murmur. But look at God’s enduring faithfulness to bring them into destiny. Their thankless hearts obviously grieved him for forty years as they constantly doubted His goodness and power, but God never left them! God’s grace rained upon these rebels like clockwork as the sun rose and set. The daily manna never failed. The cloud by day and the fire by night were their constant provisions. The Rock that was Christ never stopped pursuing them.
You may grieve and quench Him, and He lovingly chastens you, but – HE WILL NOT FORSAKE YOU. Why will God not forsake you? Because He can redeem you. He can redeem your past. As He told Israel through Jeremiah, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11).
LOOSE HIM AND LET HIM GO
Interestingly, Jesus let the people play a role in the miracle of Lazarus. Jesus brought him from the grave and then told the people to loose him and let him go. Through gentleness and drama, Jesus could have easily freed Lazarus from his grave clothes. Jesus could have left the men out of the narrative. But He didn’t. Jesus required the people to release Lazarus. Why? There is a truth demonstrated here.
The people might have doubted that Lazarus was indeed alive. Maybe they thought him to be a ghost. It was the people who bound Lazarus and put him in that tomb. They knew he was dead. Those same people had to let him go. They had to untie him. Their willingness to let Lazarus go was their agreement that Jesus had indeed performed a miracle in bringing the man back from the dead.
Likewise, Church, we are the ones who have bound the people, not God. Because we believe that God can bring them back from their death and failures, we must let them go. We must show our agreement with Jesus’ power to truly restore them.
The Church must begin to demonstrate this redemption of God. We must give hope to men. We must! We are the priests of the Lord on earth, and whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Many are the fallen who need redemption. Many are those who have buried themselves in shame and need to be restored and delivered from the suicidal sorrow that Satan wants to devour them with. Church, rescue them in Jesus’ name!
LOOSE THEM AND LET THEM GO
We, as believers, are in the world to rescue men from their failures. We are the ministers of reconciliation. That means we are the ministers of forgiveness. Not just any forgiveness; we administer God’s forgiveness to fallen men. Sometimes, those fallen men are in our own families and churches.
We must learn to see men in Christ and not in Adam. For too long, believers have focused on humanity’s fallen nature and not the new creation God has made believers in Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul said that Jesus died for all because all were dead. He died so they could live again, but this time for Him who rose from the dead. Therefore, we know no man after the flesh. “… if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new … For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:17, 21).
Stop looking at one another after the flesh, but look at one another as new creations of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but when we see Him, we shall be like Him. The God of peace will conform us to the image of His glorious Son. We are constantly becoming something else. In our walk towards Christlikeness, we must believe and hope in the Lord; therefore, as believers, we must work together as partners and companions in the life of faith.
According to 2 Corinthians 5:20, we are the ambassadors FOR Christ. Notice that the text says FOR Him and not OF Him. This means that you are not simply representing Him, but you are the voice by which He speaks. Jesus, through you, is begging men to be reconciled to God, to be redeemed.
DON’T LET SATAN SWALLOW THEM UP
Satan swallows his victims with sorrow. Multitudes are being destroyed by Satan, not by a lack of repentance, but by a lack of hope. Satan is the accuser, and the spirit of Satan operates in those who accuse others. Unforgiving people operate in the spirit of Satan by robbing others of the destiny God can give them. The ministers of reconciliation give sinners a future and hope.
The person holding the power of forgiveness can either assume the role of Satan, the accuser, or God, the forgiver. They possess the power to tell offenders who they are becoming or, like Satan, can remind them of who they are.
To accuse is to be against one in the assembly. It can even mean a lawful complaint. That means you might be right in the accusation. You might have legal grounds to revolt against them. Jesus certainly had that opportunity to accuse humanity, but instead, He laid down His life in love to redeem us. Jesus asked His Father to forgive us. He could have asked for our destruction but chose to forgive and redeem instead. Oh, to be like Jesus.
A forgiving person has ceased to be an accuser. Instead of calling for exposure and justice, they seek to be agreeable; they seek ways of redemption. They will show themselves gracious, offering sinners a future in Christ. These gracious believers manifest the most valuable spiritual gifts. These spiritual gifts of love and forgiveness are demonstrated not by one’s ability to see what is wrong with everyone, but by the ability to discern what God’s grace can make them.
Forgiveness demolishes the past and opens a glorious future. Forgiveness places the shame and guilt into the past. God’s forgiveness restores us and launches us into a new destiny. But unforgiveness destroys us. Unforgiveness keeps the family from moving forward. Unforgiveness robs the marriage of love and intimacy. Unforgiveness buries a person into the despair of their past failures.
The importance of forgiveness is to TRANSFORM and REDEEM the offenders into the destiny God extends to them. When you see people through God’s eyes, you do not identify them after the flesh. That is no longer their identity. They have a new identity in Christ. You speak to them according to their destiny. This is how heaven addressed men on the earth: Gideon, thou mighty man of valor. Simon, you are Peter. Saul, you are Paul. God prophesies that all of us will be given NEW NAMES in heaven, so let us speak to one another in the light of this glorious future.
Satan exerts all his might to destroy man in sin. God wants to redeem the sinner’s life. Our failures are the tools that Satan uses to keep us down. Satan is the accuser of the brethren; and by shame and insults, he plays upon our own understanding of our failure, weaknesses, and shame.
How do the ministers of reconciliation combat these strategies of Satan? Instead of cursing, they bless. They bless the character and nature that God’s grace is working in them. This blessing is not just saying prayers – this is the result of your ministry to God. By Christ indwelling you, you see what HE sees; you know what He is doing in other believers’ lives. It is not simply saying something over somebody as though you have the power to change a zebra’s stripes; it is Christ in you, beseeching men to be reconciled to God. Jesus is speaking through you the life and destiny of others because you believe in His power. You believe because you live with God and see what HE sees and can do!
If some of you extended forgiveness to your sons and daughters, they would return to Jesus. Redemption is powerful! Forgiveness is the ability to move on from this sin.
When people come to Jesus, encourage them to put their faith in Jesus. Deliver them from hoping in themselves. Deliver them from futile attempts at self-improvement. Demolish their obsession with improving themselves.
I have watched many relationships end due to the result of a misplaced faith. For example, a man repents to his wife. She agrees to work on the marriage; however, he must perform. The wife, who has supposedly forgiven him, is now putting him on trial and demanding that he make no more mistakes. The man strives to fulfill this demand. He works feverishly to make the flesh behave. Sadly, failure and sin are the only results. Her forgiveness was there, but her hope for a glorious destiny was misplaced. She hoped IN her husband to be different and failed to encourage the work of God’s grace in his life. Demanding perfection in the flesh, the man eventually could do nothing but be exposed as hopeless.
Our hope is not in people’s ability to be different. Man cannot improve himself. We hope in Jesus’ grace to redeem and make man a new creature. We do not hope in man. We do not hope that man will do better. Our hope is in God. God can make men beautiful. Many are failing because they work hard to be a better person. They constantly say they are sorry, confessing, “I promise I will never do that again.” But they will. They will because they can no more change their life than a zebra can change his stripes.
Stop hoping for change through your own power. Stop pressuring your friends to be somebody different by their own power and will. Let us reconcile men to God and watch what God can make them. Then, let us forgive one another often and, thereby, launch them into their God-ordained destiny. Let us inspire one another to live as the new creations of Christ.