Following on from my post about Pastor Daniel Ekechukwu having been told by an angel that he would go to hell because of his unforgiveness, I was asked in a recent e-mail
WHat happened to the cross forgivving me all sins past and present ?
By my actions I shall always fall short on a day to day basis.
This highlights a vital issue. When I visited another church recently I preached on Law and Grace from Galatians. I was very clear that legalism is a bad idea and that we must believe that Grace is the only way to heaven and freedom from law is how we should live in this life. However, even in that message I made it very clear as I believe the bible does, that when a person genuinely turns to God for forgiveness certain things must follow. One of these is repentance. There is no biblical grounds for believing you are saved unless things in your life have changed. There really is judgement to come for all. Its not so much though that our acts save us as that what we do demonstrates wether or not we have been saved. It is faith alone that saves but the faith that saves is never alone.

I know that as some people have been listening to a recent series of messages on the sermon on the mount at Jubilee Church, they have asked themselves am I really a Christian?

What I am really saying is that the gospel comes to us when we know that we are failing God (and which of us can say we don't even fail our own moral standards let alone God's!). The gospel then tells us we can be saved and forgiven and given a new start. The bible seems to be very clear that if we then take this salvation which says we can go to heaven now no matter what we do as an excuse to go and sin more and more we prove that we have not been born again. Unforgiveness seems to be very key to all this so if you are struggling with that very issue its time to become a peacemaker and put things right with others. How can we claim to have been forgiven by God if we won't forgive each other?

Unforgiveness evokes Gods wrath, it corrupts generations, it breeds hatred, it lives like cancer, and it results in misery