8/7/13

When we do something that we know is against God’s will, our brains record that incident with amazing clarity.  My guess is that most of us could, with a moment’s notice, pull from our memory banks a time when we stood at the intersection of sin and righteousness and consciously chose to sin.  And, even though we later confessed it to God and repented, even though we experienced God’s forgiveness, He does not go inside our brains and erase that memory.  As a result, it is easy for us to be convinced that, because we can remember the incident, God automatically remembers it as well.

And what makes it worse is that our brains trigger emotions when those memories of spiritual failure are recalled.  So we remember not only the sins we’ve committed, but the emotions of Godly sorrow and remorse we felt afterwards as well.  But, those memories and feelings of guilt are only phantoms.  They exist inside our minds, so they feel real, but they don’t exist in the mind of God….

God’s Word in Isaiah 43:25, Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 10:17 and Hebrews 10:17 all say it…. Our Lord has gone on record, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

So…. bottom line: We have to discipline ourselves to trust the fact of our forgiveness over the feelings of our phantom guilt.

Pray with me…. Your grace, Father God, is amazing!  We celebrate it regularly in our public and private worship times.  How can we thank you enough?  We are forgiven and free.  And we thank you for the memory of our own sin, only so we can resolve not to repeat it.  In Jesus’ dear name we pray, amen.

Blessings,
Pastor Ken