Christian Family Services Ministry

8-29-2020 – A Word to the Wise – Frequently, I give my clients an analogy to help understand the difference between forgiveness and the price one pays. Let’s say a person gets into an argument with their spouse, gets very angry, leaves the house and drives reckless hitting a bridge abutment. In the accident they lose their arm and spleen. They are remorseful, asking forgiveness of their spouse, themselves and others. The forgiveness is granted. Does the arm then grow back? Does the spleen regenerate itself? No, they will live with those losses until death.

So it is with immorality. Once convicted by the Lord one may never repeat the sin but the consequences remain. The consequences are often so great ones says never again—that sin.

Furthermore, of all the sins we may commit it seems to me, that immorality once forgiven is least likely to be repeated. Let me explain. With immorality a person knows they have sinned. It is black or white. One is either moral or immoral. In contrast with other sins the dividing line might not be so clear and frequently repentance is either seen as unnecessary or rejected all together. Take bitterness, as an example. Most would deny being bitter. Even once convicted of it a person quickly justifies it or excuses it. Jesus spends nearly the whole chapter of Matthew 18 dealing with the subject. Finally, the closes the subject by warning of the torment (anxiety, depression, and financial loss) one will suffer by holding onto bitterness.

Or consider greed. Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to make it through the eye of a sewing needle than for the wealth person to seek forgiveness.

Thus in many ways immorality is easier to deal with and set aside. For of the woman taken in adultery in John 8, Jesus simply says; “Go thee way and sin no more.” Contrast that with the paralyzed man of John 5 who was anger, bitter, friendless, and disloyal. Jesus warns him to stop it or even something worse than a physical handicap, and total helpless will befall him. The man did not heed the warning rather that very day betrayed Jesus to His enemies.

Some may wonder about grace. Grace does not remove the consequences, nor does it make the wrong right. Grace provides the strength to forsake the sin, and to acquire purity again before the Father.

It does not justify us before men for grace is a God thing not a man thing. Salvation is a spiritual experience rarely a physical one. Lets face it, ultimately it is what

God thinks of us that is important. With the Lord a new birth and a transformed life is possible.