Hiding My Sin From You (45 seconds)

Since God allows me to bring my sin into the light with Him and only experience positive, helpful, and beneficial results...I need to love you the same way and allow you to bring your sin into the light of our relationship and allow you to experience the same beneficial results of doing that! On the other hand, if bringing my sin into the light with you means the beginning of punishment, I think I will keep it hidden and risk the possibility of getting caught.

If bringing my sin into the light with you means the beginning of discipline, and I have experienced an environment of discipline that has always been rooted in love and has been focused on my growth, my healing, and my spiritual maturity (Hebrews 12), I will bring my sin into the light with you because I know that is better than the pain and deceitfulness of hiding my sin.

Remember - we know we have found a relationship of grace when we share the worst about us and the other person moves closer and holds us tighter.

You having that kind of relationship with me helps break the power of sin in my life...because I can live in the light. A relationship of grace is the greatest gift we can ever give someone.

So What Replaces Fear? (45 seconds)

We have talked about how as believers God will never again punish us for our sins. NEVER! If God does, then Jesus did not absorb all our punishment. We then looked at how if punishment is eliminated in our relationship with God, then fear is gone in our relationship with God. I John 4:18 is foundational here - "...perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment..." We are loved with a perfect love and so fear is gone in our relationship with God.

So now we need to ask - does fear just disappear or does something replace it? Thankfully something replaces it...something that is the polar opposite of fear. Ephesians 2:18 tells us that through the work of Christ we now have access to the Father. But then Ephesians 3:11 amplifies on this and says "we have boldness and access with confidence..." No more hesitation, hedging, intimidation, cautiousness or fear in approaching God. That is all gone...forever! Now we come boldly into God's presence with confidence! I am wonderfully at home with my Father!

Punishment vs. Discipline

Last time I mentioned that God will never punish you, as a believer, for your sins. NEVER! If He does, then Jesus was not punished in your place on the cross. But He does still discipline us. So what's the difference?

Punishment is always rooted in God's wrath and the end is death. On the other hand, discipline is rooted in God's love and the outcome is always for our good. Hebrews 12 is a good place to go to understand this. Hebrews 12:6 tells us that "the Lord disciplines the one he loves..." And so discipline is always an act of love toward us. Verse 10 then says that this discipline is "for our good." How so? It goes on to say in the rest of verse 10 and then in verse 11 - "that we may share his holiness" and experience "the peaceful fruit of righteousness." Verse 12 adds that He disciplines us so that "what is lame may...be healed."

God never motivates us to obey by the fear of punishment. Love does not punish.

If I was engaged in sin and wanted to turn from it and bring it into the light - but knew that doing so was the beginning of punishment, I would likely continue in sin. At least sin promises pleasure - even if it doesn't deliver. Punishment never promises pleasure.

Next - if punishment is gone, so is fear.

Effect Number Three - Unbelievable Good News!

Okay - lets press on to the third effect of God imputing His righteousness to us because it is so closely tied to the last effect that God no longer condemns us even though we still sin and still experience guilt when we do sin.

This third result is such unbelievably good news that most believers do not believe it! The good news is this - that God will NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER punish you for your sins again! NEVER! If God still punishes us for our sins, then Jesus did not absorb all the punishment for our sins on the cross...and Calvary did not work. A lot of believers seem to approach this like insurance, that Jesus absorbed 80% of our punishment, but there is a 20% copay that we need to absorb...and that others need to experience when they sin!

The ripple effects in our lives of this good news are incredible and far reaching and so for the next few blogs we will take a brief look at some of them. Then at some point in the future I will unpack this more fully because there is a lot here. The first thing we will need to unpack is the difference between God's punishment and God's discipline. That's next.