What Is Forgiveness and Why Do I Need It?

While performing a search on my last post, I came across this write-up from a question at Yahoo Answers: "Does God forgive sins that we continuously repeat?" by REDMAN

The word “forgive” means to wipe the slate clean, to pardon, to cancel a debt. When we wrong someone, we seek their forgiveness in order for the relationship to be restored. Forgiveness is not granted because a person deserves to be forgiven. No one deserves to be forgiven. Forgiveness is an act of love, mercy, and grace. Forgiveness is a decision to not hold something against another person, despite what they have done to you.

The Bible tells us that we are all in need of forgiveness from God. We have all committed sin. Ecclesiastes 7:20 proclaims, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.” 1 John 1:8 says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” All sin is ultimately an act of rebellion against God (Psalm 51:4). As a result, we desperately need God’s forgiveness. If our sins are not forgiven, we will spend eternity suffering the consequences of our sins (Matthew 25:46; John 3:36).

Forgiveness – How do I get it?

How Does God Deal with Repeated Sins?

I noticed this podcast from Dr. Charles Stanley, "Grace And Continuing Sin - Part 1," and was really curious what his thoughts were on it, as I have a couple of these. I have a great admiration for Dr. Stanley; his teachings are always strong, scriptually sound, and meaningful.

We've all had to deal with coming back to God with the same thing over and over again and wondering, "How long will He keep forgiving for the same sins?" Just how much grace is available to us? Dr. Stanley suggests that if a person is saved, sin cannot terminate her relationship to God. But it can destroy her testimony, fellowship, joy, peace, happiness, and purpose for living. A sinful lifestyle is like a disease and is spread by human nature.

I like how he puts it: No matter how much sin you have, God's forgiving grace has even more. If you sin 10 times, grace (God's unlimited love for us) abounds more. If you sin 1,000 times, grace still abounds more. You cannot out-sin the grace of God. Otherwise, sin could rein over the cross.