Part 3

A Spiritual Formula

This simple process has helped thousands of people experience forgiveness.

Bill Bright

Let me share a simple process, a spiritual formula, that has helped thousands of people to experience God’s love and forgiveness.

1. List Your Sins

It begins by asking the Holy Spirit to reveal every sin in your life. Take a pencil and paper and list every sin He brings to mind. As you write, confess each one of them to God.

I encourage you to humble yourself before God as you do this. Give Him time to reveal everything in your life that is displeasing to Him. This list is just between you and God, so be completely honest. Tell Him everything that’s wrong.

Your list may include (to name a few):

Leaving your first love for God
Spending little or no time praying or reading and studying God’s Word
Seldom, if ever, witnessing for Christ
Lacking faith in God
Having a jealous attitude
Lusting after material things
Dealing with others in a spirit of pride
Acting selfishly
Being dishonest, lying
Talking about others behind their back
Entertaining immoral thoughts
Committing sexual sins

Whatever your sin, write it down and remember: you have a loving God who forgives you — who even gave His Son, the Lord Jesus, to die for you.

A young man said to me after an evening meeting, “I didn’t believe I needed to make a list. I couldn’t think of anything seriously wrong in my life. But when I saw others making their lists, the Spirit of God told me to do the same.”

While there were no major areas of disobedience in his life, he said, a lot of little things had dulled the cutting edge of his love and witness for Christ.

He encouraged me, “If you ever speak on this subject again, be sure to insist that everyone, including those who think there are no major sins in their lives, make a list of their sins. If I had not made my list, I would have missed a special blessing from God.”

2. Write God’s Promise Across the List

After you have written the sins that God reveals to you, write God’s promise of forgiveness from 1 John 1:9 across the list:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

3. Destroy the List

When you have completed your time of prayer and confession, accept His forgiveness by faith, then destroy the list as an illustration of the forgiveness God has granted you. You may want to tear it into pieces or burn it to show how completely God has forgiven you.

4. Make Restitution

The final step in the process is to ask God if you need to make restitution to someone. You may need to apologize for having a bad attitude toward someone. You may need to ask someone to forgive you for the way you have treated him or her. You may need to return something you have stolen.

It’s important for you to make restitution to others because you cannot maintain a clear conscience before God if you still have a guilty conscience before people. Confession often includes making restitution.

At the conclusion of a Christian medical meeting where I had spoken on the subject of forgiveness, a doctor accepted my challenge to make his list. He was very excited when he came to see me early the next morning.

“Last night about midnight,” he said, “a doctor friend of mine came to my room and told me that he had hated me for years while pretending to be my friend. As he was making his list, God told him that he should come and tell me and ask me to forgive him. We had the most wonderful time of prayer, and God met us in a special way.”

He encouraged me to keep telling Christians to confess their sins to God and, if necessary, to ask forgiveness of those whom they have wronged as the Holy Spirit leads them.

“But I Still Feel Guilty!”

If, after you have fully confessed all of your known sins to God, you still feel a sense of guilt, it may be because you have not been completely honest with God by making a full disclosure. So be sure you are honest with God.

Are you weighed down by heavy burdens of guilt? Do you sometimes wonder if you will ever experience the love and forgiveness of God that other Christians joyfully profess?

Perhaps you feel like the man who was stumbling along the road with a heavy pack on his back. Soon, a wagon stopped, and the driver offered to give him a ride. Joyfully, the weary traveler accepted. But when he climbed onto the wagon, he continued to strain under his heavy load.

“Why don’t you take off your pack and rest?” the driver asked.

The discouraged traveler replied, “Oh, I couldn’t do that! It would be too much to ask you to carry my load as well as me.”

“How foolish,” you say. We wouldn’t think of responding like that to such an offer, would we? Yet many Christians continue to carry heavy burdens of guilt even after they have entrusted their lives to the Lord Jesus and received His forgiveness.

Frequently we experience hostility or punishment from our friends or family when we fall short of their expectations. If you have truly wronged another person, confessing it and making restitution when necessary will release the guilt. But feelings of guilt will linger if you do not forgive yourself or if you try to live up to the unrealistic expectations of others.

None of us is perfect. But as Christians we do not live in condemnation. As one who has been forgiven, you are righteous before God in Jesus Christ.

When you have completed this simple process, any feelings of guilt that remain are not from God. They are from your enemy Satan. Your sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). They are buried in the deepest sea (Micah 7:19). God has put them behind His back and remembers them against you no more (Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12; 10:17).

Digging Up Dead Birds

There was a young boy who had a pet bird, and one day the bird died. The boy was broken-hearted, and his father and mother decided that instead of allowing their son to be downcast, they would make something memorable of the occasion.

They said, “Let’s have a funeral.” Calling all the neighbor children together, they dug a little hole in the ground, put the bird in a box, and buried it with a ceremony. Instead of being downcast, the boy was excited.

But the next day, he went out and dug up the bird to see how it was getting along. His father, however, insisted that he bury it. So he did. A few days later, the boy went out and dug up the bird again. This happened several times, and each time the father would reprimand him. Finally, the father became angry and said, “Now look, you leave that bird in the ground, and don’t ever dig it up again!”

Are you confessing your sins over and over again — out of a sense of guilt — like the little boy digging up that old dead bird?

All of your sins have been forgiven by God on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross and the shedding of His blood for your sins. Whenever Satan accuses you of some act in your past that has grieved or quenched the Holy Spirit, you can say with great joy, “I have confessed that sin and I know God has forgiven me and cleansed me as He promised.”

I challenge you to examine your life right now. Are you experiencing the fullness of the Christian life? Are you carrying a load of guilt over past sins in you life? I urge you to begin the process of Spiritual Breathing today. It has helped millions of other Christians, and I know it will also help you.

God’s forgiveness is complete. Thank Him for canceling your guilt and cleansing you. Claim victory over those negative feelings and move on in faith to be a fruitful disciple and witness for our Lord.

Now you are free to experience the abundant life that He promised. Now you can encourage and serve your brothers and sisters in Christ. And now you can enter the harvest fields to enjoy bringing other people to the Lord Jesus who has done so much for you.

Remember, How You Can Experience God’s Love and Forgiveness is a transferable concept. You can master it by reading it six times; then pass it on to others as our Lord commands us in Matthew 28:20, “Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.” The apostle Paul encouraged us to do the same: “The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2).

Self-Study Guide

How do these verses describe a natural person?
a. Romans 1:21–32
b. Romans 8:5–8
How do these verses describe a spiritual Christian?
a. Romans 15:1–3
b. Galatians 5:22—6:2
How does 1 Corinthians 3:1–3 describe the worldly believer?
Which of these characterize your life: the “natural person,” the “spiritual man,” or the “worldly believer”? What would you like to change in your life? How will you do that? (See pages 14–17.)
In your own words, explain how Romans 7:14–19 relates to your life.
What does the great promise of Romans 8:1 mean to you?
Why does God care if there is sin in your life? (See pages 24,25.)
What does each of the following verses tell you about God’s view of sin?
a. Ephesians 2:1
b. Psalm 107:17
c. Isaiah 59:2
d. Habakkuk 1:13
What influence do pride and humility have in the Christian life? (See Proverbs 11:2; 15:33.)
What do these verses assure you regarding God’s cleansing from sin?
a. Psalm 103:3,9–12
b. Psalm 86:5
c. 1 John 1:9
How does Hebrews 11:1 describe faith? How would you apply that verse in your life on a day-to-day basis?
What do the following verses tell you about exercising or increasing your faith?
a. 1 Corinthians 2:1–5
b. 2 Corinthians 4:13–18
c. Galatians 5:6
d. James 2:14–18,26
God’s Word says that your sins have already been forgiven. Why, then, do we confess sins? (See pages 25–29.)
If a person has confessed all known sin in his life and has claimed the forgiveness of God, but still has guilt feelings, what should he do? (See pages 31,32.)
Are there any unconfessed sins that are short-circuiting God’s power in your life? (Read Matthew 5:23,24.) Take a few moments to list on a piece of paper any sins that the Holy Spirit reveals to you. Write 1 John 1:9 across the list, claiming the verse by faith for your life. Then destroy the list and make restitution, if necessary.
Think of someone in your family or workplace who doesn’t know Christ. How could you influence them to believe in the vitality and excitement of living for Christ?

Group Discussion Questions

Is God’s forgiveness also possible through the other religions of the world?
The word “confess” means to “agree.” It means you are saying, “I agree with you that I did that wrong thing to you. I am guilty.” How much should you tell God and the person you have wronged when you agree about your sins?
To whom do you confess: the whole church, your neighbors, or only the person you sin against?
Suppose God brings to your mind that last year you stole or used some of your employer’s money and did not pay it back to him. So you confess this sin to God. Your employer is not a Christian and does not want you to talk to him about God. As far as you know, he does not know that you stole the money. What should you do? (See Mark 11:25; Matthew 5:23,24.)
Can you remember times in your life when you refused to repent and confess your sins after God had shown them to you? What happened in your life because of this? What happened in your public and family life?
Discuss what can happen if you do not confess your sins. Will you lose your salvation? Will you need to believe and receive Jesus Christ again as your Savior? (See John 10:27–29.)
What if you commit the same sin again? Do you need to confess every time? Why do you continue to do this evil, even after you have confessed? If you confess the same sin so many times, does this mean that you are not saved?