Isaiah 43:25 “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” Today's episode talks about how Jesus forgives and forgets our sins as soon as we confess them. It talks about how important it is for us to believe in our identity as redeemed sons and daughters of God. We are saints who sin sometimes, not sinners who get it right occasionally. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Your Sins Are Not Remembered
Isaiah 43:25 “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
This was the topic of one of our sessions at my Encounter School of Ministry class last night. The topic was dead to sin. We talked about how because Jesus died on the cross for us and because we are baptized, then we are dead to sin. When we are born, we have a fallen nature. This is because of original sin. However, when Jesus died on the cross, he took our sin with Him. Therefore, we no longer have a fallen nature, we have a sinless nature. In Romans 6:11 is says, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Do you consider yourself dead to sin? I wasn’t sure what to say when asked this question. I wasn’t sure what this question even meant. Then we were asked another question that gave me a little more clarity. Do you consider yourself a sinner who does the right thing now and then, or do you consider yourself a saint that sins sometimes. This is all about a mindset. We have to live into our baptism promises. We need to believe that Jesus died for our sins and when he did he removed our sinful nature. Our identity matters. You may think this is a little thing and it doesn’t really matter. You may think the above question is just a matter of semantics. I assure you it isn’t. What you tell yourself matters.
We are saints who sin sometimes. It is important that we understand this because the enemy wants us to focus on our sins. He wants us to think we are unredeemable. He wants us to feel like we are our sins. The enemy wants us to take on our sins as if they are our identity. For instance, I lied to someone therefor I am a liar. I stole a piece of candy from a friend, therefore I am a thief. You are not your actions, you are not your sins. You are a redeemed child of God, that is your identity. Your sins are things you do and they can be forgiven and forgotten.
Did you know that Jesus doesn’t remember our sins once we confess them? He forgives and forgets them. It says this in the verse above. Jesus is saying he blots out our transgressions and he does not remember our sins. One of the saints, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the nun responsible for the spread of the devotion to the sacred heart was once asked by her spiritual advisor to ask God what her last mortal sin was. He wanted to make sure her visions about the sacred heart were truly from God. Who better to know our last mortal sin than God who knows everything. The next time she was having prayer time she asked the Lord what her last mortal sin was and do you know what he said? I don’t remember. With this response her spiritual advisor knew her visions were from God.
Can you believe this response? I thought this was a great verse to bring to all of you today because I don’t remember ever hearing this verse before. I have read through the entire Bible three times and I have done several Bible studies and yet I don’t remember ever hearing this verse before. We tend to think of God as someone who is writing down all of our sins in a book and keeping track of them so He can show them to us at the end of our lives and ask us to explain them. However, this verse says He forgives and forgets our sins. How amazing is that? Another things a lot of us think is that we need to work really hard to make up for our sins. We don’t. Jesus did that when he took our sins to the cross with Him. All we have to do is admit our sins, confess them to God and they will be forgiven and forgotten. Our teacher explained it like this, “Jesus, just wants you to admit that you took the cookie from the cookie jar.” God wants you to come before Him as a child and admit what you have done.
The enemy wants you to hold onto what you have done. He wants you to accept your sin as your identity and he wants you to be too ashamed to share it with the father. The devil wants to convince you that God couldn’t possibly forgive you for this thing you have done. He convinces you that this thing is different, yes, God forgives sin, but not sins like this, not sins this bad. The devil is a liar. He is telling you this because he knows your deepest fear is not being forgiven or accepted by God. There isn’t anything you can do that is unforgivable. And it is not hard to be forgiven. All you have to do is admit what you have done and then accept the forgiveness God gives to you.
This last part is hard for many of us. We are willing to confess our sins, and yet we have a hard time accepting the forgiveness God is offering us. We have a hard time believing we are worthy of this forgiveness. Let me set one thing straight, we aren’t worthy of God’s forgiveness or His Grace. We aren’t worthy and yet He gives them to us freely. Through his death on the cross and through our baptism we are redeemed from our sinful nature and therefore our sins are forgiven and forgotten. It is incredible and yes, hard to believe.
If we look at this through our worldly eyes, we find it hard to believe God would forgive and forget. Forgiving and forgetting is something we really struggle with. If we are struggling with identifying as a saint who sins sometimes and instead think of ourselves as sinners who sometimes does the right thing we can take this to God during our prayer time. This week while we are praying we can ask God to show us how to transform our thinking. We can ask God to help renew our minds so we can understand this truth. We can ask God to show us how to adopt this identity of a saint as our own. If God forgets our sins, why are we holding onto them? Why do we take these sins and make them our identity? Our true identity is a redeemed son or daughter of Christ. Our true identity is a saint who sometimes sins.
Dear Heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to truly believe we are saints who sometimes sin and not sinners who sometimes get it right. Lord, help us to believe you forgive our sins when we confess them, and then you forget about them. Help us to believe you are not sitting up there in heaven keeping a stick account of every sin we have ever done. We love you Lord. It is amazing to us how you forgive and forget even though we aren’t worthy. We are so very grateful and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. If you would like to give a witness this week for Witness Wednesday there is still time, just contact me today. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!