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Affliction of Soul
Confession
Discipline
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Discovering God’s Purposes by Relating with Him through the Lord’s Atonement
Summary
The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is celebrated by afflicting one’s soul by fasting, confessing sins, and repenting before God. This provides for making amends with God, and reconciling one’s standing before God.
Yeshua the Messiah, Jesus Christ, became our atonement. He is the atonement. We receive the grace of His redemption by appropriating His atonement. Paul provides instruction on this subject.
In the same way, consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God, by your union with the Messiah Yeshua. 12 Therefore, do not let sin rule in your mortal bodies, so that it makes you obey its desires; 13 and do not offer any part of yourselves to sin as an instrument for wickedness. On the contrary, offer yourselves to God as people alive from the dead, and your various parts to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will not have authority over you; because you are not under legalism but under grace. (Romans 6:11-14 JNT)
The LORD’s atonement is settled forever! He has wiped away all the spiritual requirements for righteousness that were—and could ever be—set against us. In union with Him, we are set free from all traces of guilt and condemnation!
Also it was in union with him that you were circumcised with a circumcision not done by human hands, but accomplished by stripping away the old nature’s control over the body. In this circumcision done by the Messiah, 12 you were buried along with him by being immersed; and in union with him, you were also raised up along with him by God’s faithfulness that worked when he raised Yeshua from the dead. 13 You were dead because of your sins, that is, because of your “foreskin,” your old nature. But God made you alive along with the Messiah by forgiving you all your sins. 14 He wiped away the bill of charges against us. Because of the regulations, it stood as a testimony against us; but he removed it by nailing it to the execution-stake (cross). (Colossians 2:11-14 JNT)
Upon confession of revealed sins or ways we have fallen short of God’s best, and then receiving the LORD’s atonement and reconciliation, we also have the opportunity to adopt new measures of discipline to help us walk in the new light we have received.
Life Application Questions
How do you appropriate the LORD’s atonement in your life?
Do you know in your heart that the LORD has performed total atonement for you, exchanging His life for your death to sin?
Are there some areas where you still condemn yourself?
Have you allowed the Holy Spirit to wholly set you free, and receive the LORD’s work and word discharging you from the debts and penalties of sin?
What measures of discipline do you think you can apply and implement in your life to help you walk in the new light you have received?
Scripture References
Psalm 119:57-176; Romans 1-6
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