How To Ask God For Forgiveness | Spoiler Alert, Christians Don’t Have To
Alarming but true, Christians do not need to ask for forgiveness. We already have it. Let’s unpack this confusion from 1 John 1:9.
Note: Unbelievers DO need to ask for forgiveness, and we’ll cover that process in a moment.
I have frequently been asked how to ask for forgiveness from God. Many Christians are trying to figure out what special prayer to use to ask God for the forgiveness of their sins.
I think it’s important to first disclose I am NOT saying it’s not okay to ask for forgiveness. That’s fine if you want to. But I am saying there is not a single verse and all of scripture that says Christians somehow need to ask God for forgiveness in order to activate the blood of Christ. It’s this idea that if you commit a willful sin, you are somehow in a state of broken fellowship until you fully repent of that sin, and then ask for forgiveness.
In today’s video, I’m going to unpack a lot of confusion that comes from 1 John 1:9 claiming that the author is calling children of God to “ask for forgiveness” as if this is some type of prerequisite for getting right with God.
What you will discover in 1 John 1 is that he is writing people who do not really believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus. In fact, they don’t even think they sin.
And what we discover is happening is that what’s going on in this letter is actually as simple as sharing the gospel with people who need to be saved. And verse nine is simply telling them that they need to confess their sin in order to receive what Christians already have. A once for all forgiveness. Total justification. A people that will be presented as completely blameless.
So when somebody asks, “how do I ask God for forgiveness”, I answer with it depends on whether or not you are already in Christ. If you’re a Christian, I’m basically going to tell you that you do not need to ask for what you already have.
If an unbeliever were to ask me, “how to ask God for forgiveness” I would tell them they need to believe Jesus.
They need to believe Jesus when he says he died on the cross in their place so that their sins would be paid for by his blood. They need to believe Jesus when he says that he has the power in the authority to be the propitiation for their sins. And most importantly, they need to believe Jesus, when he says that he was resurrected from his death, which illustrates clearly that he has the power to give us new life as well.
Author: Mike Cynar
Mike Cynar grew up in church and observed that countless people would go to church and then just stop. The church always referred to them as ‘fake Christians’ or ‘backsliders’ but Mike discovered the problem was deeper. The problem was the church message. The message was 90% behavior improvement and how bad you are, with a pinch of who you are in Christ, It was like every sermon was being preached to the church of Corinth. It’s in the Baptist church, Catholic, Pentecost, and most every other church. After discovering the true gospel message and how we are made right with God because of what ‘Jesus did’ (not what ‘we do’) Mike set out to free believers from behavior improvement programs and bring them back to Jesus. The Result – Jesus Without Religion was launched.
