The Light February 2020 02

February 2020 The
Light 16
misinformed or quietly confused. I am a follower
of Jesus myself, and have never needed a
religious Priest to forgive my sins. I prefer to go
to the Bible scriptures to inform me of what I
must do.
The first thing I notice is that we need to be
accountable for our own actions. Nowhere in
the Bible does God ‘let us off the hook’ and allow
us to blame others for our mistakes and failings.
We can’t even blame a devil or shaytan for our
actions. The buck stops with us! In Genesis 4:7
we read how Allah calls to the heart of Cain, who
is having murderous thoughts towards Abel. He
is feeling angry, and very jealous towards his
brother. Allah calls to him and says: “Sin is
knocking at the door of your heart. YOU MUST
HAVE MASTERY OVER IT!” We learn here that
we have strength to overcome our temptations.
We are accountable for our own actions. Sadly,
Cain caved in, and murdered his brother. He did
not choose the way of Allah.
Similarly, the prophet Ezekiel taught us that
we need to be accountable for our own actions.
He said: “The soul that sins, it shall die. The son
shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither
shall the father bear the iniquity of the son”
(Ezekiel 18:20). We stand before Allah as individuals,
and need to admit our faults to Him. We
cannot blame our actions on others.
When the first followers of Jesus walked
this earth (in the early days) there was no such
thing as a ‘New Testament.’ The only scriptures
they had were what we commonly know today
as ‘The Old Testament.’ So their teaching would
be based naturally on these writings. What do
we learn about the pathway to forgiveness in
these scriptures?
Wow! We learn what an amazing God we
serve! Rather than Allah being the one ready to
pounce on us when we fail (like a cheetah chasing
and killing its prey), Allah is described as the
one who is “good, and ready to forgive; and
plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon
thee” (Psalm 86:5). Nehemiah too, reminds us
that Allah “is a God ready to pardon, gracious
I Shall Love All Mankind.
and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness”
(Nehemiah 9:17).
The prophet Isaiah describes Allah as the
one who will “abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).
So how do we get forgiveness? Just ask Allah
for it! “I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity
have I not hidden. I said, I will confess my
transgressions to the LORD; and you forgave my
iniquity” (Psalm 32:5). So we need to confess to
Allah, to be honest with him, to tell him openly
and freely that we have done wrong. But there
is something else we must do also.
Just as a bird needs two wings to fly, so too
there are ‘two wings of forgiveness’ that enable
us to fly up to the throne of mercy. The first wing
is confession. But the second wing is repentance.
2 Chronicles 7:14 informs us of this by
saying: “If my people, which are called by my
name, shall humble themselves and pray, and
seek my face, AND TURN FROM THEIR WICKED
WAYS, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive
their sin.”
I often think of circus trapeze artists swinging
and leaping from swing to swing high up in
the air. There is a safety net below them to catch
them if they fall. But the safety net was never
designed for the trapeze artists to willingly and
deliberately keep jumping in to. In the same
way, we are never to take Allah’s forgiveness
lightly, thinking we can just sin and get away
with it again and again. Yes, the safety net of forgiveness
is there, but there must always be a
genuine heart of repentance, a turning away
from what is wrong. “Let the wicked forsake his
way, and the unrighteousness man his thoughts,
and let him return to the LORD, and he will have
mercy upon him; and to our God, For he will
abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).
How are you doing? Are you in need of forgiveness?
Do you long for your heart to be as
pure as the purest snowflake? Just as footprints
on the beach can be washed away by the oceans,
so too can your sins be washed away through
the amazing power of forgiveness. Confess and
repent and fly towards the throne of mercy! To
be continued … (Return to contents)
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore
Founders of the first Islamic Mission in the UK - established 1913 as the Woking Muslim Mission.
E-mail: editor.thelight@aaiil.uk
Websites: www.aaiil.org/uk | www.ahmadiyya.org | www.virtualmosque.co.uk