Friday, 15 May 2009

• Grace forgets

    "God does not keep a record of our sins in order to use them against us.
  
  

  Rather, He forgives and loves us even as we suffer through the consequences of our sins.
  
  

  .. ..
  
  

  I was thanking the Father today for his mercy.
  
  

  I began listing the sins He’d forgiven. (when was the last time – if ever – I’ve done that?)
  
  

  One by one I thanked God for forgiving my stumbles and tumbles.
  
  

  My motives were pure and my heart was thankful, but my understanding of God was wrong.
  
  

  It was when I used the word “remember” that it hit me…
  
  

  God doesn’t just forgive, He forgets.
  
  

  He erases the board.
  
  

  He destroys the evidence.
  
  

  He burns the microfilm.
  
  

  He clears the computer…
  
  

  No, He doesn’t remember.
  
  

  But I do, you do.
  
  

  You still remember.
  
  

  You’re like me.
  
  

  You still remember what you did before you changed.
  
  

  In the cellar of your heart lurk the ghosts of yesterday’s sins.
  
  

  Sins you’ve confessed; errors of which you’ve repented; damage you’ve done your best to repair.
  
  

  And though you’re a different person, the ghosts still linger. Though you’ve locked the basement door, they still haunt you. They float to meet you, spooking your soul and robbing your joy. With wordless whispers they remind you of moments when you forgot whose child you were…
  
  

  Poltergeists from yesterday’s pitfalls. Spiteful specters that slyly suggest, “Are you really forgiven? Sure God forgets most of our mistakes, but do you think He could actually forget the time you…”
  
  

  Was [God] exaggerating when He said He would cast our sins as far as the east is from the west? Do you actually believe He would make a statement like “I will not hold their iniquities against them” and then rub our noses in them whenever we ask for help?...
  
  

  You see, God is either the God of perfect grace, or He is not God.
  
  

  Grace forgets.
  
  

  Period.
  
  

  He who is perfect love cannot hold grudges.
  
  

  If He does, then He isn’t perfect love.
  
  

  And if He isn’t perfect love, you might as well put this book down and go fishing, because both of us are chasing fairy tales.
  
  

  .. ..
  
  

  But I believe in His loving forgetfulness. And I believe He has a graciously terrible memory.”

  
  
  

  From ‘GOD CAME NEAR’ by Max Lucado

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