Originally posted 1/31/20
You are made perfect. The moment you say ‘yes’ to Jesus becoming your savior, every sin – past, present, and future – are erased. It’s as if you never have sinned and never will sin. In Psalm 103 there is a list of the benefits of the Lord. One of his benefits is, “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” Psalms 103:10-12 (ESV). Yes, we may have earned death because of our sins, just like Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death…” Because Jesus loves you and me so much, he has paid for us to be redeemed and has given us the free gift of salvation, just like the rest of Romans 6:23 says, “…but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” What this means is that even before you were born and had the ability to sin, Jesus loved you enough to offer you the free gift of salvation, and the benefit of salvation is that your sins are completely forgotten. When God sees you, he sees his beautiful and perfect child. When he thinks about you, only good things come to his mind.
What does that mean for you and I? It means that we become a brand new person, just like 2 Corinthians 5:17 says. As a completely new person, we are free to let go of the guilt of our past, present, and future. We are free to see ourselves as forgiven, and we are free to forgive ourselves. It means that we can stop defining ourselves by our past sins. That person doesn’t even exist any longer. You have been made new!
This new found freedom also includes the way you view others. 2 Corinthians 5:16 (NLT) says, “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!” We are free to see not just ourselves, but everyone around us as a new, perfected person. My husband said it beautifully: “Because we are made new in Christ, it affects how we see other people, treat other people, and how we do ministry. We see others how the Lord sees them, not according to their outward fleshly appearance or actions (sins) but according to the Spirit. We treat others like God treats them, with unconditional love, mercy, and grace, not counting their sins against them, but in a forgiving spirit. Our ministry is one of reconciliation: we are bringing people back to God, telling them that God does not count their sins against them and has provided a way for them to have peace with Him!”
It is through love that we show others by treating them and seeing them in the same manner that Jesus sees them. This is the job we have been given when we accept the role of servants of Jesus. Jesus makes us ambassadors to reconcile others to him.
“And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” 2 Corinthians 5:18b-21 (NLT)
This sounds all great and good, but how do I see people who abused me like this? First, let me say that I am so sorry you were treated this way. It breaks my heart, but more importantly it breaks the heart of Jesus. Even in those moments, Jesus was with you, crying with you and over you. When you became his child, he made you new, including the parts of you that were damaged because of other people’s actions. You are made whole by the power of the work of Jesus. Because you are now whole, you have the strength and ability to see even those people through the eyes of Jesus. I’m not saying that you need to let these toxic people in your inner circle. There are people in my life who used to be in my inner circle, but for whatever reason they needed to be placed farther away. I can still love these people. I can still see that those actions aren’t who they really are, but perhaps they are hurting from their past or present circumstances. I can see that they perhaps are living in fear and react in harsh ways. I choose to still love these people and pray that the Lord will heal them one day. I can even pray that they will live a life of victory over whatever causes them to react in such terrible ways. I can do all of that without inviting them to be in my inner circle. You can do that too! You can do all of that just like I do because, like me, you are a new creation. You allow the power of the Holy Spirit to fill you so you can forgive these people and see them for who God created them to be, not who they are currently acting like. It is God who made you new, and it is God who will allow you to see the way he does. You can’t do this in your own power, only through the power of the Holy Spirit. So pray and ask God to give you his eyes. Then look at people and ask God what he sees. You just might start seeing people in a whole new way, and it will be so freeing!
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