Who but God can forgive sins?

Mark 2:17 But some of the teachers of religious laws who were sitting there said to themselves, "What? This is blasphemy! Who but God can forgive sins?"

It has always baffled me how people who are so religious and knowledgeable about the Word can get so far away from what the Word says. These people who criticized what Jesus was doing were people who were teachers of the religious laws; they were like college and seminary teachers in our day. There life work was to teach others the ways of the Word. The were highly educated men who should not have missed the point of all of Scripture, and that is that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world.

Being religious is the death trap of the soul. Having the right answers and missing the point is one of life’s greatest tragedies. The church is full of people who are religious, but lost. Faith is having a vital relationship with the living Christ, not knowing a great deal about Him. Faith is not the dispensing of information; it’s living in Christ. It makes no difference how good of a person you may be or what you know about the Word of God. If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior and Lord you will go to hell when you die.

Most people have heard of Jesus and have some knowledge about Him, but they will carry their knowledge with them into hell when they die. Be careful that you aren’t basing your readiness for death on how good of a person you may perceive yourself as being or on what you know about the faith. A relationship with Christ can only be had through the embracing of what He did for us at Calvary, confession of our sins, asking Him for forgiveness, and committing ourselves to letting Him be Lord of our lives and changing us in any way He sees fit to make us holy before God. It also means that we forsake our sins and strive to do them no more.