And To Tell You That I Am Not Counting Your Sins
April 14
2 Corinthians 5:18-19 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”
In my addiction, I did many egregious and sinful things. Many times I felt a crushing amount of guilt and shame for what I had done. I believed I was a bad person, and that I could never be forgiven for all of the terrible things I committed. If other people knew what I did or what I was thinking, they would hate me and then turn around and run far away. I also believed this is how God saw me. How could God love someone like me who had a list of sins a mile long? How could God extend forgiveness to someone like me who kept going back again and again to the addiction? How could God have any amount of patience for me? Certainly, God would eventually turn away and give up on me, too.
It took several years of weekly recovery meetings before I began to open up to the idea that I was forgivable. It was a slow and arduous process, but over time, I began to see that no sin was so terrible that it was beyond God’s grace and forgiveness. There is no sin so horrendous that Christ’s shed blood on the cross didn’t cover. There is no thought, word, or deed so grotesque that would turn God away from me. No amount of shame and guilt erases what God says about me. I am not beyond God’s reach. I am not beyond God’s love, grace, and forgiveness. For me, one of the most beautiful images in the Bible is when the Father rushes out to welcome home the prodigal son. The Father didn’t wait for the son to come into the house. No, as soon as the Father saw the son in the distance, he was filled with compassion and ran out to meet him, threw his arms around him, and kissed him! There was forgiveness…and a party!
I am forgiven. That long list of confessed sins associated with my addiction are forgiven by God. Not only are all of those sins (and any other sin I confess) forgiven by God, but God also chooses to forget them. We see this truth in Psalm 103:12 “as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us,” Jeremiah 31:34 “for I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins more,” and Isaiah 43:25 “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” God is faithful. God is loving. God is forgiving. God is merciful. God is slow to anger. God is abounding in steadfast love. God desires I follow Him and confess my sins to Him. When I do confess, not only is He faithful and just and will forgive me, He also chooses to forget the sins. How amazing! What love! All of this is because of the reconciliation that happened through Christ’s death on the cross. God does not count my sins against me and keeps no record of my wrongs. Those were nailed to the cross, and it has all been taken care of through the blood of His Son, the Spotless and Perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ.