Psalms 103:1-4  Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me bless His Holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;...
	This evening’s text is rich in the greatness of our God. There is much that should and could be stated as to the complete counsel of God in bringing King David to the point of singing this psalm before God. The history behind these insights is a long and terrible one, filled with many grievous deeds, terrible actions, and dire consequences. These words are not uttered because they sound good set to the music of a stringed instrument. They are forthcoming because they emanate from the heart that has been anguishing before the Almighty in desperately seeking after God to make Himself known in mercy and in grace and in forgiveness. The beauty of this Psalm, rests not in the words that are translated before us, but in the heart response of God unto the one proclaiming God’s right to be blessed in all of creation. There is a sense of the completeness of God’s work and the fullness of His ordained plan and purpose. It is a pointing unto the fulfilled work of the Messiah, of Christ, yet to be seen by the writer, but experienced in his heart before God. We are given the vision of a man who has been forgiven by God. It is a forgiveness not by human effort and endurance, but because of the grace of God to so love us unto Himself that He can do nothing else but forgive.
	We are going to spend some time in this area of coming before God in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. This is not a new message, by any means. It has been preached from the beginning of our relationship with God, when we accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. The Holy Spirit has been faithful to bring forth the truth of forgiveness in our fellowship over these many years. 
	There is much that can be said, in terms that we have heard before. Only the Holy Spirit can manifest true forgiveness as it is made known in our hearts, as with the Psalmist. Lord willing, what we will be seeing is forgiveness from the vantage point of its completeness in Christ, and its evidence in the Body of Christ, His Church, in us, in action. Where He takes us, I hesitate to conjecture, but rather seek after Him, and ask you to do so as well, in guiding us in the truth of the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Guiding us into the ever increasing knowledge of what it means to be partakers of His Life, today, this moment, and for eternity. You see, that is the basis for the psalm before us. The writer was seeking after a greater knowledge of God because all that is true of God is worth knowing and bringing forth unto creation in  order to give God the full praise and glory that He is due. The more we know of God, the Almighty God, full of grace and truth, the more we should find our hearts seeking fervently to proclaim, in word, and in thought, and in action, the majesty and the splendor and the adoration of Our One, True, and Only Living God. 
	In the Book of Leviticus, we have a recorded history of the Children of Israel’s need for forgiveness laid out in very specific terms. From the beginning, God made a provision for His people to find forgiveness before Him. Our God is a Gracious and Holy God. He always desired a relationship with mankind that transcended that of Creator with creation. He opened His heart before man in manners that are astounding and awesome in the willingness of God to express His nature of Love unto us. He allowed for a sinful people to come before Him, not covered in their sin, but by an avenue of forgiveness that would set aside their sin, if only for a season. You see, there is but one true sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world for eternity, our Lord Jesus Christ. That sacrifice, under Levitical law was not yet available, so the Children of Israel where allowed a for-taste of that which was to come. In Leviticus chapter 5, we have the law set forth concerning the sacrifices that would garner forgiveness for a season. Even in this, the Lord made every provision, every possible avenue for His people to find a covering for their sins. The first was to be a lamb or kid of the goats. Then, if one could not afford that, two turtle-doves would be acceptable. If one could not bring forth the doves, fine flour could be offered and burned at the altar. Provision was made for every aspect of society, every member of His people could find a way of bringing forth an offering that would be pleasing to God in terms of atonement. Lev. 5:10 And he shall offer the second for a burnt offering, according to the manner: and the priest shall make an atonement for him for his sin which he hath sinned, and it shall be forgiven him.
	God never left His people without an avenue to His heart, without a means by which they could seek after Him. He could not accept their sin, but He could accept their repentance and their hearts after Him. This is of utmost importance as we look to forgiveness. God’s nature of  forgiveness allows a winderful relationship with His people. He desires for His people to come into His presence, to abide in Him, to fellowship with Him, to know Him. He knows us. He knows our every thought, our every motive, our every action, our every failure and our every success. It is we who need to come into a more perfect knowledge of Him, and He has willingly opened Himself fully unto us, if that is our desire. He doesn’t force Himself upon us. He doesn’t make us sit at His feet and force-feed us. No, He has made every provision so that we can freely come into His presence and fellowship with Him, if that is our heart’s desire. This is a possible explanation for those many Christians who never seem to go farther in the Lord than simply salvation, or baptism, or the elementary steps of scriptural knowledge. I am in no-wise diminishing any aspect of God in this statement. Each of these great truths are vital in God, and a tremendous work of God individually. Salvation by itself is an immense action of God that will bring Him glory throughout the ages. But, there is so much more that could be known of God, if we will but seek after Him. 
	In Leviticus, we have the picture of a people with limited possibilities of forgiveness before God. They were limited in their approach to God, based on the fact that they were tied to repeated sacrifices and rituals in order to make an avenue unto Him. They were able to come to God, and to fellowship with Him, if they desired to. That was the problem. When God was dwelling with them and speaking forth unto them, they demanded that He go away. And all the people saw the thunderings and the lightenings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. Ex. 20:18-21 It is a sad indictment of the Children of Israel, and the rest of us who have no desire to know God. Rather, we are satisfied to have others just tell us what the things of God are like, rather than seeking after a greater perception of God in the relationship that He desires with us. 
	Now, don’t misinterpret what I am saying. The Lord makes provision for the feeding of the flock with teachers and preachers and ministers who bring forth the Word of God. God has His servants for His purposes in the caring for the needs of the Church. I am not, and I repeat, I am not saying that there is no need for ministers and for gathering together as the Body of Christ. True servants serve to encourage the flock to go on in Christ. They urge the church into seeking after more and more of the Life of Christ in living reality. Rather, what is sad, and what is so disappointing is that there are those who cannot be encouraged to know more and more of God. There are those people who are locked in by man-made doctrines and fears. There are many people who are completely satisfied with what little they know of Christ, and unwilling to go forward because it would mean leaving the safety of denominational dogma and having to trust the Holy Spirit to lead through the unknown, the wilderness into all that He desires for us. 
	That is why the Children of Israel refused to even enter into the promised land, refused to cross over Jordan. They were afraid, and more comfortable in their ignorance, rather than willing to be led beyond the land that they knew. They cried out that they would prefer to return to the slavery of Egypt from which God had redeemed them, than to proceed into the reality of His Promised Land. 
	All of this is but an awkward manner of trying to point out that there is so much of Christ that we have yet to know. God has given us all spiritual blessings in Him. It is in forgiveness that our hearts opened fully to know more and more of Him. Eph. 1:3+4 spring so readily to mind, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: This verse lays before us everything that is true of our fellowship with God in Christ. It too, begins with a focus on the blessing that should be given to God for all that He has done. Then it contains that wonderful word, “hath”. God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ. This is past tense. It has been done, accomplished for all the ages of the ages to come. There is nothing that we are required to do or to accomplish on our own before we can receive all that God has ordained for us. We have no waiting period to fulfill before we are eligible to receive the full heart of God. It has been lavished fully upon us in Jesus Christ. It is as our hearts are open to Him, that He can reveal all that He has done in Christ. These spiritual blessings are at work in us now, at this moment, fully intended for our benefit and our understanding if we will but seek after Him. He will fully respond in every manner of grace and truth and mercy, if we will but desire for that living relationship to be our very life at this moment. Even as we hear these words, is there anything stirring in our beings that says yes, I want to know the Lord in a manner far greater than that which I have yet known? Is there any sense, within us as individual Christians and as the Body of Christ corporately that craves after more and more of Christ? Or, are we like the Children of Israel, fully satisfied to live the life we have been living, even hungering after the bondage from which we have been freed, rather than seeking after God? Are we afraid of what might happen, of losing our self-lives? Are we rather mollified by having someone else deal with God, and just willing to do what we are told to do in order to get along with our lives on the earth? 
	Are we living our lives in fear of having to trust God to lead us? Seeking after God is deadly peril to our self-lives, and self-understanding. He is not limited to what is known in finite, neatly ordered terms and habits. He does not settle for the routine. Instead, He routinely leads us on paths, and in ways that are incomprehensible to the human mind, but oh, so divinely and perfectly ordered when viewed from His vantage point. He leads us through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, yet, He never leaves us to die. He is always with us, always guiding us, always manifesting Himself in all His mercy, grace, compassion, and forgiveness. 
	It is in His way, by His guidance, in His forgiveness that we are brought to the point where our hearts cry out with the Psalmist, with the Apostle Paul, with all the redeemed of the Lord, Blessed be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Bless the Lord oh my soul, and All that is within me bless His Holy Name!
	He has purposed, in His Heart, before the foundation of the world was laid, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. This is the true purpose of forgiveness in our beings. God has ordained that we are to be holy and blameless before Him with all the blessings of Jesus Christ richly bestowed and lavished upon us in order to establish fellowship with God and man, Friend to friend, Father with son. Have we ever considered this great truth in terms of forgiveness? It is so easy to take it for granted, to simply thank the Lord that we are forgiven without a comprehension of why. Sure, we are saved from hell, we are secure for eternity, as we have previously mentioned. But that is not the all of forgiveness. It is but the initial aspects of such a great reality in Christ. Forgiveness should permeate our beings because it is the essence of Who God is, working eternally in us to bring forth ever increasing manifestations of Himself in all His glory. Forgiveness should permeate our beings because it is the essence of Who God is, working eternally in us to bring forth ever increasing manifestations of Himself in all His glory. It is a manifestation of His very Being of Love. As Love, He forgave us. As we saw, even in the Old Testament, under the Law, showing that man was not enabled to live a life of perfection as was needed in order to have perfect and complete fellowship with God, there was provision for forgiveness if one would but seek after it. It was not a matter of earning it, but yearning after it in order to be pleasing unto God. 
	That is what is so important to grasp in our present relationship with God in Christ. It is through Christ, and Him only, that we are now freely forgiven in order to be pleasing to God in a new relationship in our new life in Christ. Many of us may have never seen this, or have taken it for granted as just another wonderful actuality in Christ. But, we must never become complacent in any aspect of our Lord Jesus Christ. We must always cherish and value Him above all else. In Him, full forgiveness, without any ritualistic aspects of renewal, has been lavishly bestowed upon us for the express purpose of bringing us into the very presence of God, without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle or any such thing. What the eternal ages of the ages contain are summed up in the Person of Jesus Christ, and the eternal glory wrought in His perfect work as the redemptive Lamb of God. In that consummate and immaculate sacrifice of Love, all the floodgates of heaven were opened in forgiveness. Full, utter, complete and perfect forgiveness washing away all fault, all transgression, all iniquity, every shred of guilt in those who willingly accept it, in Jesus Christ Our Lord and Savior. God so loved us, and so loved us unto Himself, that He gave His Son to be the avenue through Whom all the forgiveness of God could flood the universe, opening His very heart before man, His creation. Without forgiveness, there is no access of a defiled man in the presence of God. That is impossible, for sin could not abide to be in the presence of the Purity and Holiness of God. Sinful man would instantly die, as did Uzzah in touching the Ark of the Covenant. Sin has no place in the presence of God. It cannot and will not continue in the vicinity of God’s sanctity. That is one reason why the people of God, especially those who so serve the Lord in utterness, such as the prophets and the Apostles were persecuted and martyred by the inhabitants of this realm, yes even by the so-called people of God. Darkness cannot abide the light, because the light exposes that which was hidden in the shadows. The light of God’s purity shows forth the sickness and the deformity of this age, and strikes at the very core of this world’s nature of sin. That is the reason that God had to make a perfect way of forgiveness, if man was ever to be brought into the very presence of the Being of Holiness. 
	God declared His intent in Christ, as He proclaimed on several occasions, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased. (Matt. 3:17, Matt. 12:18, Matt. 17:5, Heb. 5:5, II Pet. 1:17) The Lamb was declared to be fully acceptable unto God, in terms of living a life that was completely set aside for the work of the Father. Christ manifested the perfection required of the sacrifice through Whom God would be able to forgive once and for always, the sins of the world. In Christ, God’s essence of forgiveness is manifested for the expressed determination of loving us unto Himself. He did not expect us to be able to make our way to Him, He made the provision, every provision in Christ, unto His own heart. So open is He in Christ, that we are even forgiven the very crucifixion of the Perfect and Blameless Son of God, necessary for the cleansing of our hearts before Him. So effectual is the forgiveness in the work of Christ, that we are now made to be one in Him, joined for the eternal ages of the ages in the glorified Person of Jesus Christ. There is much to consider, as we have just begun to touch the face of God’s forgiveness. He is actively working in us by the cleansing effectiveness of the Holy Spirit, just what it means to be forgiven. There are many avenues that this consideration could follow, but the one that is most expedient, is that of what forgiveness means as the Church, the Body, with Jesus Christ ONLY as the focal point. There is a work that is needed in us, to bring us to the point of looking at our behavior and our attitudes and our hearts in relation to what is needed in order for the glory of Christ, and Christ only to be manifested as we live on this earth. That is the course that seems to be before us, individually and corporately. It is not the choice that is familiar and comfortable. It is not the path that the Children of Israel desired after the spies reported the giants in the promised Land. It is the one that requires and desires for the Lord to lead, no matter what the cost, no matter what the avenue, no matter what this world would have. Is it the course we seek in Him, because it will cost us everything? Let the Lord guide, and He will guide us truly and rightly and faithfully, through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, knowing that He guides us and comforts us, and that goodness and mercy shall follow us, and that we will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. 
	I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Gal 2:20  
	The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all, Amen. (II Cor. 13:14)