When someone was asked, “Do you seek God for forgiveness?” This self-centered, egoistic & narcissistic person replied, “I am not sure I have, I don’t bring God into the picture” In actuality, God is and should be the center of our picture, life & etc. Why, you may ask? It is because of our sins that His beloved son, Jesus Christ, came to be born and died for our trespasses.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) And in Romans 5:8, the bible stated that, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So, do we still think or question the needs to seek God’s forgiveness.
There are processes or steps in genuinely seeking for God’s forgiveness; it begins with one’s acknowledgment of sin. Then, confession of one’s wrongdoings is the next logical process in this spiritual exercise. The third phase should be our renouncing and repenting of one’s sin with a renewed commitment to forsake sins by obeying the word of God. Sounds like an easy one-time off task but in reality, it is not. Like the Israelites, we will still succumb to temptation and we will fall to sins over again.
When God instructed Moses and Aaron to mandate sins offering sacrifice in the Levitical laws, the sole purpose of the sin offering was to atone for sin and to cleanse man from defilement. This act of sacrifice required an unblemished lamb in place of the sinner to be killed, thus remove the gap created by sins between God and men. The weakness of this Levitical sacrifice is its recurring needs for the priest to bring the sacrifice before God seeking atonement on behalf of the erring people. In the book of Hebrews, chapter 4, we were told of the superiority of the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus is described as the Perfect Lamb of God to take away the sins of mankind. He accomplished the demands in the propitiation of sins that incurred the wrath of God towards us. Having no sins in Him, He became a man to be our substitution. He stood in our place on the cross, to pay the price for sin: death. None of us can finish paying the price because our debt is so great and we have nothing left with which to pay it. Only He could pay the price on our behalf. The Lord Jesus Christ was God who knew no sin. He was crucified and died on the cross; He arose from the grave after the third days, conquering sin and death forever. His one-time perfect sacrifice was enough. That is the difference of superiority between the Levitical practices of animal sacrifice and the Perfect Lamb of God’s sacrifice. Without a doubt, the latter, which of course, is the perfect Gift of Salvation that God gave to man. Now, having resurrected from death and ascended into heaven, He is at the right hand of God and is now interceding for us as stated in Romans 8:34. Being our advocator with the Father He will always earnestly intercede for us if we draw close to God through Him as prophesied by the prophet Isaiah in the chapter 53:12 of his book.
So, can a person claimed to be truly a child of God and thinks that there is no offence in his or her wrongdoings that require forgiveness from God? I John 1:8 stated that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth are not in us. Therefore, our claims of being a Christian be it Presbyterian, Protestant, Evangelical, bible loving and church going person, or whatever, are meaningless and nonsensical bags of lies. When you said that you do not bring God into the picture, you are inferring that the role and sacrifices of Jesus and the act of drawing close to God are non-essential and unnecessary. Therefore, Christ’s sacrifice and works of salvation for us are meaningless to the heinous sinful actions of this person. That is blasphemous and contrary to the truth in the gospel.
If the person thinks he does not see the needs for God forgiveness for his sins. Perhaps, the scripture in Titus 1:16 said it all, “they claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.” This is a religion of self- righteousness and human pride.
Finally, if anyone among us thinks he is religious, or that he is “the Chosen One”, but does not bridle his tongue or constantly staying away from Jesus our intercessor, deceives his own heart. His religion is useless. This is a religion of self-righteousness, as the bible describes it as nothing short of filthy as a “filthy rags.”