Getting Another Chance from The God Who Won’t Let Go; Divine grace in the face of guilt, tragedy, and failure, by Dean Merrill.
“If you could use a fresh start,” this book “offers biblical insights that can help you align yourself with God’s redemptive will for your life. It provides practical questions for reflection. And through true-life examples, it reveals a Savior who will meet you in the midst of your circumstances … and flood your life with unexpected grace.”***********************************************
Song: Second Chance, Hezekiah Walker and the Love Fellowship Crusade Choir, featuring Monique Walker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlIzVnBM3jo&feature=related)
[There are multiple videos of this song. This one is live – slower and longer than some of the others - and at the end, Ms. Walker sings “Another Chance” – that was the former title of this book!]
I actually picked this book up when I was in the library because of the author. Always before, I had seen Dean Merrill’s name listed on a book as being “with” someone else who had “top billing” for authorship. The book was a good reminder that God’s mercy truly endures forever.
Someone had asked me about repentance, and I was able to share some information from this book with them:
1) In his book Let Us Enjoy Forgiveness, Judson Cornwall explains and then illustrates how completely God removes our sins once they are confessed. This excerpt begins with a comment on Colossians 2:13-14, “He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to His cross.”
The more common Greek word for the cancellation of a contract is chiazein, which means to write the Greek letter chi, which is the same shape as a capital X, right across the document. This was called a “cross out.” But Paul uses the Greek word exaleiphein, which literally means “to wash over,” as in whitewashing, or “to wipe out.” The ink used in Paul’s day was basically soot mixed with gum and dilated with water. It would last for a long time and retain its color, but a wet sponge passed over the surface of the papyrus could wash the paper as clean as it had been before the writing had been inscribed on it. This is the word Paul uses here. Our sins have not merely been canceled out; they have been blotted out…
God made this truth tremendously clear to me when I was pasturing on the West Coast. I had been burdened for a pastor who had been defrocked by his denomination for immorality and had moved to my community to start life over as a watchman for a plywood mill. Over a period of many months, we lunched together and came to know each other quite well. I continuously sought to cause him to accept the forgiveness he used to preach and encouraged him to live as a forgiven man, but it was difficult for him, since he had lived most of his life in the concept that God has a separate standard for ministers. After more than a year, the reality of God’s forgiveness began to dawn upon him. … It was great to see this guilt-ridden brother begin to accept the fullness of God’s glorious forgiveness. In time, his denomination recognized the change in him and reinstated him, offering him a small church to begin his ministry anew. …
“Lord,” I prayed, “have I been mistaken about him all along? Did he really confess his sin, or did he merely admit his guilt? Is he caught up in self-condemnation, or is he still guilty in Your sight?”
God’s answer came in the form of an immediate vision. With my eyes still closed in prayer, I saw myself in a large room that had bookcases on all four walls with volumes of leather-bound books from floor to ceiling. It reminded me of a legal library. As I looked at the books, I saw that they were alphabetized by names of people. A large hand with an extended index finger began to move across the books, until it came to the one with this minister’s name on it. The book was removed from the shelf, placed on a small table, and opened in such a way that I could see and read the pages. The first page told the story of his birth, and subsequent pages told of his early childhood, of his call into the ministry while he was still in his teens, of his first ministry and pastorate, of his courtship and marriage and of his climb to a respected position in his denomination. … Everything that I read fit what I had come to know about this man.
The top of each page was dated, very much like a diary, and as the pages got closer and closer to the first incidence of adultery, I wondered how God would have it recorded. But when the book opened to that date, the page was absolutely blank, as were succeeding pages for what would be chapters of space. Then when we came to the date of his repentance, it was fully recorded with a marginal gloss that this had produced great rejoicing in heaven. Following this, the pages recorded his progress back into faith, his ministry in our church, his reacceptance into the denomination, and his call to the new church. Puzzled by the many blank pages, I asked if I could have a closer look at them. My request was granted, and I saw that there had been writing on the pages, but that it had been erased. On the bottom of each erased page, in red, were the initials “JC.”
True to His word, Jesus Christ had “blotted out the charges proved against you, the list of His commandments which you had not obeyed” (Colossians 2:14 LB). Heaven had no record of this man’s sin. The only existing record was in his memory.
Excited with this revelation, I rushed to the phone and called the brother. After I told him what God had shown me, he quit his job, took the church, and re-entered the ministry as a forgiven man.
God does not forgive and then file it away for future reference; he forgives and then erases the record. The pages of transcript that record our sinning are erased clean. Even the tape recording of our confession is erased, so that none will ever have access to our past. The guilt is removed and so is the evidence. This is the way God forgives the repentant one. Acts 3:19 urges us, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out [Greek exaleiphein], when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (KJV).
2) To be forgiven, to have our blot erased and forgotten, is a great gift. But to watch God fill the empty space, writing a new thing upon the tablet of our lives, is even greater. It is the final evidence that He does not hold a grudge, that He has not schemed some kind of residual punishment for us. His love is so complete that it does not stop until He has assured us that we are more than just tolerable in His sight; we are valuable.
Justice: We get what we deserve.
Mercy: We do not get what we deserve.
Grace: We get what we do not deserve.
Sam Wilson
[ Makes me think of verses from Isaiah 43:1-4, 18-19:
The Redeemer of Israel
1 But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel:
“ Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name;
You are Mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.
3 For I am the LORD your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in your place.
4 Since you were precious in My sight,
You have been honored,
And I have loved you;
Therefore I will give men for you,
And people for your life. ..
18 “ Do not remember the former things,
Nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.
…and Philippians 3:12-16 (New King James Version)
Pressing Toward the Goal
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.]
…and my journey with Him continues…
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