RESURRECTION BLESSINGS (5)

“And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:22-23 NKJV).

The overriding purpose of God in blessing people is to use them to bless others. God is not so much in need of repositories of blessings as He is of channels of blessings. He blesses us so we can bless others. He forgives us so we can forgive others. He told Abraham, “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing” (Genesis 12: 2 NKJV). In His resurrection blessings, Christ gives us peace so we can become peacemakers. He gives us power so we can empower others. He honours us with His Presence so we can reveal Him to others.  He forgives us our sins so we can forgive others.  The resurrection blessings of the Lord can therefore be summed up in four words –peace, power, presence, purpose.  He conferred peace when He declared, “Peace be with you” (v19). He empowered us when He said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (v20). He blessed us with His abiding Presence when He declared,   “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v22). He gave us purpose for living on earth when He announced, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (v23).

Christ, by His death and resurrection enabled believers to become one with Him and by so doing become restored in the image and likeness of God. “So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world” (1 John 4:17 NLT). The goal of Christ in redeeming us is for us to be able to live like Him in this world. He wants to populate the earth with people who resemble Jesus in every way. Only such people would do the work of Jesus, which is the ministry of reconciliation. The ministry of reconciliation is the way we extend or retain forgiveness to others.  The Apostle Paul explained:

¹⁷When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun! ¹⁸All these new things are from God who brought us back to himself through what Christ Jesus did. And God has given us the privilege of urging everyone to come into his favour and be reconciled to him. ¹⁹For God was in Christ, restoring the world to himself, no longer counting men’s sins against them but blotting them out. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others. ²⁰We are Christ’s ambassadors. God is using us to speak to you: we beg you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, receive the love he offers you—be reconciled to God. ²¹For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us! (2 Corinthians 5:17-21 LB).

You cannot preach to anybody whose sins you have not forgiven. It is only when we have forgiven those we perceive as sinners can we feel the compassion to share the love of Christ with them. Only a person who has been reconciled to God through Christ can serve in the ministry of reconciliation. Christ first loved the world before He took its sins upon Himself and died on the cross for its redemption. Forgiveness is borne out of love for others. Nobody can forgive without the empowering influence of the grace of God. As “God was in Christ restoring the world to Himself, no longer counting men’s sins against them but blotting them out,” even so  we as ambassadors for Christ, He want to be in us pleading to non-believers to be reconciled to Him.  In this way, we extend the forgiveness of God and spread it throughout the entire world.  When we fail to do so, we restrain the forgiving influence of Christ from diffusing into and throughout the world.

The Bible makes it clear that only God can forgive sin (Mark 2:7, Luke 5:20-24). We live in an imperfect world, therefore we offend one another from time to time. God expects us to forgive one another in cases of such offences. When we forgive other people’s trespass against us, God also forgives us readily (Matthew 6:12; 18:35).  May the Spirit of God help us this week to extend forgiveness through the ministry of reconciliation and as we forgive one another’s offences in Jesus Name.