While we
tend to remember, to one degree or another, sins that we have
committed and other people almost always seem to remember
God's perspective is very different. When we have sought
forgiveness of our sins and placed our faith in Jesus Christ we have
become a new creation...
Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the
new has come! All this is from God... (2 Corinthians 5:17-18a)
When God,
Himself, says that the old has gone, He isn't kidding! Those sins of
the past are gone, plus those sins of the future that are part of our
past (as found in the sinful flesh) are also gone. So where do they go?...
Who is a
God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the
remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight
to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread
our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the
sea. (Micah 7:18-19)
In your
love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my
sins behind your back. (Isaiah 38:17b)
"I,
even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and
remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)
No longer
will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know
the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to
the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their
wickedness and will remember their sins no more." (Jeremiah
31:34, see also Hebrews 8:11-12, 10:17)
When God
forgives, He forgets forever! His purification is permanent and complete...
If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our
sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)
And by
that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. (Hebrews 10:10, also read from verse 1
to 9)
"Come
now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your
sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they
are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)
The Father
no longer looks upon our sin, as it has been covered by the blood of
Jesus. As the old hymn asks, "Are you washed in the blood of the
Lamb?" Only with the sin removing power of Jesus' blood can our
sins be forgiven.
But if we
walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one
another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
(1 John 1:7)
How much
more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts
that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:13-14)
The next
time the Devil throws that old sin of the past in your face, stand
firm in Christ knowing that you have been fully forgiven and God no
longer holds it against you. Complete forgiveness! |