Good Morning Gorgeous,

It is a brand new day. A fresh new start. God is causing the sun to rise again. It is our reminder that we serve a good, good God who is alive and at work in the lives of His people. He is active and involved in our lives. He knows our needs, our hearts, our current situations, and He is with us in our daily comings and goings. He walks with us, talks with us, guides us, protects us, empowers us, and strengthens us. His forgiving grace abounds!

How can we walk in such closeness with the Lord? Jesus is the answer. Prior to Jesus, this type of close communion where we actually enter the Presence of the Lord was saved for the high priests. Only the high priest who was set apart, sanctified, and purified could go into the inner sanctuary of the temple to enter the Presence of the Lord. He did this once per year to sprinkle the blood of the sin offering to atone for his sins and the sins of the people. He was allowed behind the veil which was a heavy curtain that covered the most Holy part of the temple, the inner sanctuary. He was able to enter the Lord’s Presence because He was purified by the blood. This happened once per year. It had to be done each year to continue to cleanse the people until…. the perfect sacrifice and the perfect and blameless high priest could atone for our sins once and for all….. Jesus.

Jesus, fully God and fully human, walked a blameless and pure life here on earth so that He himself could become the perfect atoning sacrifice and grant forgiveness for our sins. When He took his last breath on the cross, the veil that was in the inner sanctuary split in half! The veil was torn! No more separation between God and His people!! Why? Because of Jesus and His forgiving grace, we are found blameless and pure and able to enter God’s Presence.

Because of Jesus, salvation and forgiveness of sins are accessible by ALL people who call on the name of the Lord. And we don’t need human intercession for forgiveness. We are able to humbly confess our sins, mistakes, mess ups, struggles, unkind words, wrong intentions, and destructive patterns directly to the Lord Himself! And He forgives us fully, completely, and totally. Our sins are cast away as far as the east is from the west. We are found blameless in the sight of the Lord because Jesus lives on the inside of us. God no longer counts our sins against us because the perfect atoning sacrifice was offered: Jesus offered Himself.

Jesus is the most beautiful love offering ever given in all of history. He freely gave Himself out of a wild, passionate, all consuming love for His creation. Jesus shows the love of a goooood God who set the perfect plan into motion to redeem His people from the curse of sin.

In the Old Testament, The high priest would enter the inner sanctuary of the temple with blood that was not his own, but instead that of a sacrificial animal, but in the New Testament, the Lord made a new way: Jesus sacrificed His own body, entered heaven itself, and presented Himself to the Lord on our behalf.

Here it is written out for us in Hebrews:

For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:24‭-‬28

Friends, this means that we can freely bow our heads, drop to our knees and confess everything to the Lord. And He will forgive us, cleanse us, and purify us. Repentance is a lifestyle. It’s a way of continually choosing to humble ourselves and ask for the removal of things that are not of God. Sin separates us from God’s Presence, yet because of Jesus, our repentance brings us back into right relationship with the Lord. We can repent anytime, anywhere. Because Holy Spirit lives inside of us writing God’s ways on our hearts, we can feel it in our spirits when we have sinned and need to ask for forgiveness. And it can take place many times a day, like a continual conversation with the Lord as we recognize our mistakes and keep turning toward Him to forgive us and set us back on solid ground and walking in the direction of our purpose. The Lord will set you right again and again and again. In His mercy, He is compassionate and faithful to forgive.

This forgiving grace leads way to the Holy Spirit’s empowering grace that enables us to live free from the chains of sin and destructive cycles and instead of choosing the flesh, we can choose to live by the spirit. Grace not only forgives us of our sins, but empowers us to stop walking in sinful ways. Grace is such a beautiful gift with an abundance of functions.

Forgiving grace enables us to walk hand in hand with Jesus, and He sees us Holy, blameless, and set right. We are righteous in His sight because of our faith in Him. When we believe in Him and repent of our sins, He calls us righteous because of our faith in Him.

Then, comes one of the most challenging parts of forgiving grace… trusting and believing that you are truly cleansed and set free. Sometimes the hardest part is forgiving yourself and releasing yourself from the things you’ve done in your past. That is why its so important to know what forgiving grace accomplishes for you. And what the Lord says about you.

His forgiving grace means that you can boldly claim:

• I am fully forgiven and set free from sin.
• I am cleansed and pure because of Jesus.
• I am able to boldly enter God’s Presence.
• I am the child of the living God.
• I have access to the Lord and I can freely pray directly to Him. He hears me when I pray.
• As I draw near to the Lord, He draws near to me.
• Because of my faith in Jesus, I am found righteous by God.

Wow friends! Those are powerful statements that anyone who has received the salvation of the Lord can boldly proclaim over their life! When you receive God’s saving grace, and confess that you have fallen short and messed up, you my friend are forgiven, set free, saved and sealed into the kingdom, and able to walk cleansed and whole today!

Forgiving grace:

Cleanses us of our old ways, and gives us a new chance.

It is our reset button that enables us to begin again

Washes away the old, and makes us new

Breaks chains, and sets us free

Shame has to flee, and identity is revealed

You are no longer condemned by the enemy, instead you are anointed by the Lord, Himself.

And EVERY TIME, you come to the Lord and ask for forgiveness….. GRACE WINS!

Dear Heavenly Father,

Your love has me continually in awe of You. Help Your people to see ourselves as You see us. Help us to release ourselves from the sins of our past. Help us to recognize areas of our life that need to come into Your light and be forgiven. Let us believe the truths You say about us. And enable us to rebuke the lies of the enemy that cause us remember our old sins that You have already forgotten.

In Jesus’s name, Amen.