Have you ever made a certain mistake so many times that you wonder if God will forgive you for the last one? I’ll answer for myself… YES and on more than one occasion. Now, in my heart , I know His love is unfailing and His mercies are new every morning, but when you’ve messed up for the hundredth time, it doesn’t feel like that.
I heard Keith Moore talk about an encounter he had with Father God one time and I think it’s worth repeating. He said he too, had messed up again and when he went to God to receive forgiveness that he said something like “I know it’s like the hundredth time I’ve done this but I need your forgiveness again” and like only Keith Moore can say “Then God said to me and I don’t mean I heard an audible voice, but on the inside I heard.. ‘Keith I only know about this one time, not the others’”! He then went on to explain that when he had received forgiveness for the prior trespasses that the Lord, in His amazing mercy had truly forgotten them.
I’ll always remember that story and it has helped me so much over the years. So if Papa God is so quick to forgive and truly forget, why are we so slow to do the same? David said in Psalms 103:11-18 that The Lord removes transgressions from us as far as the East is from the West! (paraphrased) So how far is that? Well, you can’t answer it because if you go as far East as you can, you will be just as far from the destination as when you started. In other words, He completely forgets the matter that we so often mull over for days, weeks and years.
I think one of the reasons He can do that is because He is not linear; I mean He is not restricted or confined by time or space, because He defines them. Because of that He can truly dispose of all wrongdoing in a way that is not possible to humankind. So what do we do then? Well, I’m glad you asked! We receive forgiveness and forgive others BY FAITH! That’s the only way we can accomplish the feat of moving forward towards Him and away from sin behind us, because we will never feel like it and left to ourselves we will always want to pay a price for our sin.
We hold ourselves to the framework of our past instead of seeing ourselves as the righteousness of God IN Christ. Why do we do that??? Because it’s easier and comes more natural to us than to believe past, present and future sin has been absolved from our life. But the TRUTH of the matter is that it has been. Nothing we do takes God by surprise, but I’ve always tended to think that it did. Just like it’s so hard and take faith to believe in His Free Grace, it’s so natural to think “well, I’ve done it again, there’s no way He’ll forgive me this time!”
Too late! He already has! In fact, He has forgiven the world, saved and yet to be saved, through the beautiful gift of His Son on the Cross. You see, it s a reception issue, not a doing issue! What I mean is that we have to learn to put ourselves in “reception mode” for His grace and mercy to work properly and not in a doing mode because we could never do enough to deserve it. The very thing we need from Jesus, we already have in His death and resurrection, we just have to reach out and receive it… and then walk in it. Like James said in his wonderful letter, “Faith without works is dead!” but you can’t work to get faith, you can’t work to get grace or mercy. It has to work through you, it has to become a place that you live from, a place that is your home away from His home!
When you live there, your mess-ups will seem smaller than your victories and you will stay in seclusion far less time because you realize, it’s not my home and I don’t want to be separate even for a split second from my Daddy. He knew before you did it that you were going to do it, and guess what, He’s not ticked off or upset! I know its hard to take in, but it doesn’t make any difference, that the way He wants it and if that is how He set it up, no amount of moaning and groaning about your failure will make a difference. It will only distance you from your home and make you a run-away.
So don’t spend one moment in self-examination and torture for your sin-slip, get back in His lap and receive the mercy Jesus paid such a terrible price for. Remember this, Father God, Jesus or Holy Spirit never want to be apart from you. The power of their Triune Grace is so much bigger than our petty shortcomings.
Let me make one more thing clear, the Grace that we receive so freely came at such a high price that we can never use it as a license to do whatever we want under the flag of forgiveness. Francis Schaffer said it best, “Grace is not freedom to sin, it’s freedom to live righteously empowered by God”.
Hope this helps,
Barry