A Forgiving God

Psalm 99:8 NLT

The name of God that my devotion talked about this morning is "El-nasa". Not NASA....nasa. This is the Hebrew word for "forgiving" and it is pronounced "naw-saw". The word has several other meanings as well, and they all refer to forgiving or bearing in some way.

As I was reading about this aspect of God, I was put in mind of people I know who don't believe they need forgiving. They don't believe they are "bad" people, so what do they need to be forgiven for? I probably even felt that way myself at some point before becoming a Christian. Now, however, I find it amazing that any of us could ever think that we were so blameless as to not be in need of forgiveness.

Have we ever lied? Have we ever stolen something from someone, even a pen or pencil from work? Have we ever treated another human being with contempt or hatred? Have we ever allowed our anger to take us well beyond anything even resembling self-control? In essence, are we human? Every single one of us has been guilty of at least one or all of the things I just mentioned and probably some I haven't. None of those things is considered right by our Heavenly Father. Think of it as breaking one of your parents' house rules while living under their roof. Don't you need to ask their forgiveness in order to make it right? In order to restore the relationship, don't you need to repent of your disobedience? It's the same way with God. He is our Heavenly Parent and we live under His roof our entire lives. The thing is, God's forgiveness came through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and in order to receive that forgiveness we need to receive Jesus. We need to acknowledge that we broke the rules, ask our Father to forgive us, and receive that forgiveness for all of our sins; past, present, and future by asking Jesus Christ to be the Lord of our lives and help us stay right with God. WHY do we need to stay right with God? Well, that's a whole different note for another day. Let me just suffice it right now by asking you where you want to spend eternity. Whether or not you need to be right with God depends on your answer.

None of us is perfect and none of us ever will be perfect this side of eternity. We have ALL done wrong in the sight of God and we ALL need forgiveness. Whether we believe it or not, has no bearing on the validity of truth. We all need our forgiving Father God. We all need the freeing power of El-nasa in our lives.