The Great Church Deception

"I don't need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It's not my purpose to punish it; it's my joy to cure it.”
~ William P. Young, The Shack~

I've heard from way too many people that there is something which Jesus left unfinished on the cross.  Apparently, despite His becoming sin in our place, there are still some sins which Christ somehow missed {2 Corinthians 5:21}.  This despite the fact that we are told throughout scripture that Christ Jesus would be the pardon for our sins.  Over and over again I hear those who I know to be christians agonize over the fact that there might be some sin which they need to seek Gods forgiveness for.  Sometimes it's amusing, other times I really feel for them for continuing to hold on to their sin issues with a death grip.  See, I can see it from the other side as well because I used to be among those who agonized over unforgiven sins.  Each day, in my quiet time with the Lord, I would again and again ask His forgiveness for any iniquities I may have done.  Anything that, as my pastor told me, would stand in the way of God showering me with blessings.  So I prayed.  The trouble is, despite seeking my Fathers forgiveness, my blessings seemed to decrease, or so I thought.  Were there more sins that remained unforgiven?  You can imagine the torment in such a situation.  For me, the straw that broke the camels back came during one easter morning service.  As I sat and listened to the pastor heap praises upon Jesus for bearing the weight of our sins that our sin debt would be wiped clean the light suddenly came on.  There, after staking claim that Jesus had in fact forgiven us our sins, the pastor encouraged his congregation to bow our heads in prayer to ask God to forgive us our trespasses.  What?  This was the point where I began to question not Christ Jesus, but the message of the institutional church about Him. 

6knowing this, that jour old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Likewise you also, 3reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6: 6 - 11 NKJV

Even back then, I could not honestly say that Jesus had deceived me.  After all, we are told that Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever {Hebrews 13:8}.  If we're told that Christ took away that debt of our sins, then we can rest assured that He did as He said He would.  So, what would make a God believing christian suddenly go against scripture and believe something that wasn't true?  Well, like I said, it wasn't Christ who is the issue but the message we are taught concerning Him.  Jesus is the same, He became sin on our behalf that our slates would be clean.  The disconnect is in the churches message about a long dead sin issue.  I can't trust that our church fathers knew enough about Jesus to twist the message of His sacrafice.  Or did they?  Was the churches message about the works of Jesus total spin?  Maybe, but unless your heart is in the right place and you recognize Gods revelation you might still be stuck on that hamster wheel of unforgiven sin.  The more and harder that you pray for forgiveness, the more you are convicted that there might still be more out there you might have missed.  I call it the great church deception.  Believe me, the early third century church founders knew all too well what they were doing with their message of Jesus, they had to.  They were privy to the same scriptures that we are.  Indeed, this is where the deception began.  So, we know the false message of unforgiven sin, but do you know the truth of our sin issue?  The truth, as explained by the apostle Paul, is that we are now DEAD to our sins.  That's right, contrary to the institutional church  message on the matter, that sin life we were once slaves to no longer exists!  It is only through the finished work of Christ Jesus that we no longer live a life defined by sin.  When we approach our heavenly Father seeking forgiveness for some sins we feel we may have done, Gods natural response to our prayer will always be, "what sin?"  For our heavenly Father knows and understands that which we ourselves may find hard to believe.  That through Jesus we are now dead to sin. 

~Scott~