Eres de Chile? (Are you from Chile?)
No. No soy de Chile. (No. I am not from Chile.)
Now my best friend and I always laughed about this dialogue because it is so irrelevant! I am about as Anglo as you can get! You can be sure that noone will ever think I'm from Chile! And sure enough, in all these years, noone has ever asked me if I'm from Chile, and learning this dialogue was an exercise in futility. Why? Because it had absolutely no relation to my real life!
That is exactly the same way it is with sin now in my life or anybody's. I don't mean that we never sin. I just mean that there's no need to focus on dealing with our sins and trying to get forgiven for our sins because they were already dealt with and forgiven at the cross!
What was the cross all about? I think I've always thought it was Jesus work to make it possible for us to ask for forgiveness. But now God has shown me something wonderful - the act of Jesus on the cross was the act of forgiveness! On the cross, God was forgiving us all. Forgiveness means 'send away'. On the cross Jesus was sending our sin away. He is the Lamb of God who doesn't just cover our sins but takes them away! The cross was the act of getting rid of sin and bringing reconciliation. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their sins against them. (2 Co. 5:19). All wrath against sin has already been taken out at the cross. The sin issue is now over and done for everybody in the whole world, and it happened way back at the cross.
God's dealing with our sins, forgiving them, doesn't happen when we initially believe in Jesus. It happened back on the cross. It's already done! God's not looking at our sins! He's looking at us with love in His eyes! Sin isn't on His mind, it's not an issue with Him. And if it's not an issue with Him, it shouldn't be with us.
The issue now is Life. Jesus didn't just die for us; He rose for us. His resurrection proved He was successful in taking away all our sin. Now we are completely ready to be filled with the very life of God that we were meant to have ever since Eden. We all feel that ache inside that needs filling, an emptiness that can only be filled with Him who is Life. Believing the good news (that Jesus took our sin and took away that barrier between us and God) brings about an amazing change: His very life comes into us and we are raised to new life with Him! He is inside us forever, fellowshipping with us; that's what life is all about. It's about receving His life and having a Forever Friend, not about avoiding sin. Why? Because the sin issue is over as far as God is concerned, and that goes for the whole world. The whole world does not now have a sin problem, as far as God is concerned. What they have is a life problem; they are spiritually dead and need the life of Jesus. The only thing that would ever keep us in death is not believing in Jesus. Believing in Him brings life!
The fact that sin is gone and forgiven brings security. I didn't have to do anything to get rid of my sin - God did it at the cross - and that makes it secure. There's no way I could mess this up or somehow be liable for my sins again. They're Gone and Forgiven!
There is a really good analogy in the book Classic Christianity that helps me understand this. If doctors could somehow eliminate every single disease that caused death, noone would worry about dying anymore. They'd focus on enjoying life. That is exactly what Jesus has done for us spiritually. He eliminated the one thing that caused spiritual death: sin. He took it out of the way, forgave it, brought it down to death, died in our place. Thus everyone who has believed in Christ and therefore has spiritual life is completely secure. The one spiritual 'killer disease' called sin has been eliminated, so there's no need to worry about spiritually dying anymore. We're alive with the forever life of Jesus! Now we can focus on enjoying that life with Him! So we can see that God's main issue isn't sin (that's been taken care of) but relationship with us, which is what life in Christ is all about.
So obsessing about sin and trying to deal with it makes about as much sense as asking an Anglo "Are you from Chile?" It's totally irrelevant to our lives! God has taken sin away on the cross, forgiven us forever, and the only issue now is enjoying life with Jesus.. That makes me happy today!