Hey Everybody,

This week we have a guest blog from Jen Bantner. She has been one of my biggest cheerleaders so to speak since I started blogging and has been a great encouragement to me. I had the pleasure of finally meeting her and her husband Eric a few weekends ago at her Living In Grace conference. Her and Rick Malone ministered the Gospel powerfully and it was a great time for all. Jen is a fellow Charis Bible College alum who loves preaching about the grace of God and setting people free with the Gospel. She has a book coming out soon called Finally Free so be on the lookout for that. You can learn more about Jen at her ministry website www.jenbantnerministries.com.

Also, Jen is a personal Health Coach and loves helping others finding their optimal health. She has seen some awesome results in just the last 6 months. If anybody is interested, I would highly recommend her. She informed me that phone is the best way to reach her at 815-904-3065. Enjoy.

Free From the Effects of Sin

I’m really excited to get into some truths here because these are the very truths that have impacted my own life tremendously! These truths that I am about to share with you are what helped release me from the lifelong guilt that forever haunted me through the abuse I encountered as a little girl and the poor choices I ended up making as I got older. Not alone will God not remember our sins any more but he will heal our hearts by removing the memory and the pain from violations that have been done to us by others. It is His great joy to come in and heal all those areas that hurt and are broken in our lives. Beloved Jesus came to purge us from having an evil conscience that sin produces in our hearts (shame and guilt). And in His goodness He also came to purge our conscience from shame and guilt (pain) that we received from others by being abused (verbally, sexually and mentally) being rejected and even abandoned. The love of our Father came to restore every broken area in our lives to the point we know those things happened to us but we no longer have to feel the effects they caused in our hearts and in our lives.

16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

Hebrews 10:16-17King James

Friends we are in those days this scripture is talking about. God who made a New Covenant ratifying it with the blood of Jesus so we could come back into enjoying having relationship with Him. God does not and cannot remember our sins no more. He has removed them as far as from the east as to the west. Sin is not an issue with God he just hates the effects of it because he knows it will hurt you by condemning you keeping you out of being in his presence. This is a bold statement for God to say “And their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” He said this, so we would believe it for ourselves. We have been taught wrong over many centuries about the scriptures and all I have to say is that if God is not remembering our sins any more, what is he remembering about us? He is remembering how he created us and birthed us out of his heart before the foundation of the world made into his image righteous and holy perfected in him. God’s restorative plan was to give man-kind a clean conscience by writing onto our hearts. Exchanging a heart that is conscience of its past and weaknesses and replacing it by rewriting his loving thoughts in who we really are on our hearts “Our belief system.”

God wants our heart to be established in grace so while we are growing in revelation, our minds are not carried away by vein imaginations caught up by lies and wrongs thoughts but we have a mind that is caught up into its position in Christ not being conscience of sin but of its righteousness. I want to add something here the Holy Spirits job in our lives is not to convict us of our sins. The Holy Spirits job is to persuade us of our righteousness reminding us at all times by affirming us by writing words of affirmation onto hearts by reminding us who we are in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirts job is to lead us into all truth. The Holy Spirt is our exhorter not one who condemns because that goes against the very nature of who God is. The Holy Spirit is our Helper, Comforter and Counselor. He is the one who teaches us and who always leads us back to the person of grace, Jesus.

There is a teaching I want to debunk because I believe it makes us sin conscience and it was a hindrance in my own life. Please know that I’m not trying to offend anyone but we really need to start looking into the scriptures into their entirety, who they were written to and the why. Many teachings and false doctrines have been made from false interpretations from the scriptures and if we want to know the entirety of the truth of the scriptures we need to study them out and allow the Holy Spirit to teach us himself. I had this happen to me when I was in Bible College many years ago when a man came in who was teaching scripture from its true context debunking my whole way of believing. Even the way I ministered to others, totally rocking my boat. I cried my whole way home which was a two hour drive because I realized what this man was saying was true and my pride got blasted but you know what, it challenged me in a good way. I no longer just took the words of others but I started looking into the scriptures studying out for myself and depending on my teacher the Holy Spirit to lead me into all truth. All of my doctrine is not perfect but I am always looking to the One who knows and who will lead me into truth and humbling myself when in error.

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9New King James Version (NKJV)

If we are going to believe that God is not remembering our sins anymore then we need to debunk the thought that when we mess up we need to confess our sins to God because then we are believing that every time we fall short we lose our position in being in fellowship and have to get forgiveness from him to come back into right relationship with him; this belief totally negates the finish work of the cross and frustrates the grace that he came to give to us as a free gift. Let me start with this, we should never make a doctrine from one scripture there are so many other scriptures that say differently. John was addressing a group called the Gnostics they were infiltrating the church in this time and they started interpreting the Gospel through a Gnostic mindset. They believed that a person attained salvation by learning through secret hidden knowledge that must be discovered in this life. Gnostics believed that all flesh was evil and only spirit was good so the Gnostics believed that Jesus was not God himself incarnated by becoming a man. They believed Jesus was a spirit and they also believed that because sin was of the flesh, there wasn’t any sin but that sin was just an illusion.

John had to address two things in this scripture, first because they did not believe that sin was real, they needed to confess that they did have sin in their life the only one who was ever without sin was Jesus. Second by believing that Jesus was only a spirit there could have not been blood to atone for the sin of mankind to cleanse and purge the conscience of sin by making it clean. By them confessing with their mouths they were acknowledging they did have sin and that God in his goodness has forgiven them and would cleanse them from ALL their unrighteousness PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE. John was showing the Gnostics that we all needed a Savior and you cannot deny that you are without sin; John was correcting these errors that had crept into the church by the Gnostics.

The Gospel is simple my friend. The one time perfect sacrifice of Jesus continually cleanses us by purging our conscience by his perfect and righteous blood. Therefore we as New Covenant believers should not be confessing our sins. Instead when we mess up we can easily have a change of heart (repent) go into the opposite direction straight towards our Father being conscience of our identity in Christ. This is what grace empowers us to do. It is so awesome because we can ask our Father for help in our weaknesses without being condemned because we are the righteousness in Christ Jesus Holy and perfect found without blame. I believe it saddens our Father when we come to him believing that he is mad or disappointed in us. He wants us to come to him boldly to the throne room of grace in time of need so he can help us and show us who we really are. That is what it looks like to be in relationship with God in the New Covenant it is all about relationship and walking as free sons and daughters of God. We no longer have to be controlled by a sin nature and what others have done to us in our past. Our loving Father in his goodness has placed us in his own nature so when we draw near to him we will find out more who he really is to us and in turn becoming more like Him.

In closing I hear the melody of a an old hymn “What can wash my sin away nothing but the blood of Jesus, what can make me whole again nothing but the blood of Jesus.” Beloved this is what Jesus came to do in his perusing love for man-kind was to deliver us from all shame and guilt from the effects of sin. Jesus came to heal and restore the broken hearted. We don’t have to live a life of depression and out of our emotions and thoughts consumed with regrets or injustices done to us but we can live as Christ is right now in the presence of our Father. I can testify to this because what I shared with you all today is what has kept me delivered from depression for thirteen years now. What no doctor or medication could do one encounter of grace set me free from a life time of depression and self-hate. Praise God we no longer have to live in our past hurts and regrets but we can live in the present future by making ourselves aware of his loving presence maturing us into our son-ship experiencing peace and joy throughout all of our days.