From The East To The West

            Have you ever done something that people just won’t forget about it?  I grew up at the Manslick Road Church of Christ in Louisville, Kentucky.  And, while I was younger, I enjoyed things like climbing up the outside of the church building and kicking one of our elders in his shins (in all fairness, he had it coming; he would tease me relentlessly about my curly blonde hair).  Well, I’m older now and I haven’t done things like that for more than a quarter of a century now.  And, despite that, every time I go back to Manslick, he doesn’t miss the opportunity to bring up my former immaturities.

            Now, we may laugh at things like that because they are done in good spirits.  But, at the same time, we all know people who refuse to let the past die and keep bringing up our past sins.  Maybe it’s an enemy we’ve made over the years, maybe it’s a spouse or a parent, or maybe we do it to ourselves.  And, it may be that we begin thinking about how horrible sin truly is: that, aside from the myriad of earthly consequences, our sins separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2), both in this life (1 John 1:6) and in the “life” to come (Romans 6:23a; Revelation 21:8).  And, the worst part of our sin is that, no matter what the sin is, we perpetrate it against the all-loving Heavenly Father (Psalm 51:4).  And, because He is all-loving, the only sufficient sacrifice for our sins was the perfect and innocent blood of His only Begotten Son, which He freely offered on the cruel cross of Calvary (Hebrews 9:26-28).  What a thought to entertain: that not only did MY sins bring about the death of an innocent man, but that it was the death of the very Son of God!  What a horrible thing sin is!

            And, as we mature in our faith and come to better understand just how mortifyingly horrible sin is, we may begin to think that there is just no way God could forgive us of our sins or, that, if He did, He still remembers them all and will not hesitate to use them against us.  If this is the case for you, then, to you, I offer a few passages of encouragement to ease your mind.

            In First Timothy 1:15, Paul tells Timothy that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”  Paul may be using hyperbole here, but just think about what he did before becoming a Christian.  He consented to the death of righteous Stephen (Acts 7:58) and fiercely persecuted the Church (Acts 8:1, 3; 9:1-2).  And, yet, Jesus came to save even Him... and DID (2 Timothy 4:6-8)!  If Jesus could forgive Paul, He can and will most definitely forgive us of our sins when we come to Him in humble obedience to the Gospel call (Acts 22:16).

            And, be assured that He will completely forgive your sins.  The Lord will wash completely away your iniquities (Psalm 51:2; Ezekiel 16:9; Ephesians 5:26).  He will completely remove your sins far from you.  “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

            Finally, though we and others may remember our past transgressions, we are promised that the One Person who will not is God.  In Hebrews 9:12, the Lord says to those in the New Covenant: “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”  The Lord forgives and then He forgets and what a wonderfully comforting thought to any guilt-ridden soul!

            The Lord doesn’t want us to live a life of guilt and shame, but a life of hope and joy (Romans 15:13).  Live that life!

~Curtis Carwile