I grew up in a Christian home, and accepted Christ’s free gift of forgiveness at an early age. I count that as both a blessing and a privilege, but because I have always been surrounded by the knowledge and reality of a just but loving God whose forgiveness could be counted on, I can tend to take for granted the blessing of never having to live in fear.
In conversation with a friend last week, I found myself trying to find words to describe living in the knowledge that my sins are forgiven once and for all. I couldn’t do it! There just aren’t words to fully describe the peace and certainty, but as I tried to find a few stumbling adjectives, a joy I had somehow forgotten about washed over my heart afresh.
In my everyday life, it can be so easy to just not think about the fact that my sins are gone. But by the full payment of Christ, my sins are gone, paid for, thrown out—and that changeless reality goes with me every moment of every day, whether I stop to think about it or not.
Psalm 103 is one of my favorites passages for reminding myself of the character of God. It also describes what happens to our sin when God forgives it:
“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” (12)
I don’t remember who it was that first pointed out to me the significance of how God chose for the psalmist to word this verse, but it’s something that always comes to mind when I read it now:
You could possibly travel far enough north on the globe that you actually begin going south. And likewise, you could travel south far enough that you end up going north. The distance could be measured, calculated, figured up.
But how far do you have to travel west to start going east? Unlike north and south, east and west have no fixed point, so for God to say that He has removed our sins as far away as the east is from the west communicates a distance of infinity. We can never calculate, measure, or figure up the distance between us and our sins—it cannot be done!
Once our sins are forgiven, they are never coming back. In a sense, God puts them so far away, they can never reach us—and we can never reach them. What’s more, they cannot ever be laid to our charge again. As Romans 8 says,
“What shall we then say to these things? If God before us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (8:31-39)
The constant fear of hell, or of incurring the anger of a deity is something common to many religions, but in Biblical Christianity, the joy of salvation is partly found in the reality of once-for all forgiveness, and the absolute certainty that hell has no claim on the saved in Christ. We need never fear that our Heavenly Father will cast us off, for He has made us His own, and nothing can separate us from His love!
This is a joy, a privilege, and a blessing! But so often we take it for granted. And while we are living our lives consumed by the day-to-day, squandering the blessing we could be rejoicing in, there are those whose every moment is dogged by the fear of hell. They face the pressure of having to measure up, the slavery of having to try to earn their way to heaven, the unsettled dread at never quite being certain whether they will make it.
These burdened souls need you and I, dear Reader, to share with them the freedom that is found in Christ. And how will we share that joy with others if we let the cares of life cloud us over? This week I was reminded that sharing Christ can be as simple as beginning with my own experience of salvation and the Christian life, and sharing what blessing and joy, what power and confidence I have each day because of what Christ has done for me!
I challenge you: ask the Holy Spirit for opportunity and boldness to share about your relationship with Christ with someone who needs to hear it this week.
“Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. In Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins”Colossians 1:12-16