Describe you? Or are you carrying around the baggage of unrepentant sin? Do remember that our sins will find us out (Numbers 32:23) ). Perhaps your situation is that you’ve confessed your sin, sought forgiveness… but can’t seem to let go and accept your forgiveness. You do realize that You have to accept your forgiveness and move on… yes? Today is not yesterday!
“He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is His love to those who fear Him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, He has separated us from our sins.” (Psalms 103:12, MSG)
Do we believe this? Do we act on this? Obviously, if we continue in the behavior that is sinful, our repentance is in question.
“It’s your life that must change, … What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”
(Matthew 3:8-10, MSG)
And part of that change is accepting and living in forgiveness! Granted that the Message translation puts it a bit coarser but it does put a period to the point. We aren’t meant to live in yesterdays, including our mistakes and sins… we should never forget what our behavior was but it is now changed. We grow. We still make mistakes. BUT when we confess them and accept the ramifications from them – if we do repent – they no longer can control us!
Have you ever packed for a one week trip with enough clothes for a month? What happens is that you end up needing two suitcases instead of one. So while you don’t use the extras, they are with you and you see it daily and end up lugging it with you the entire time. That’s what not living in your forgiveness ends up being. You see your previous sins and though you’ve confess them and received forgiveness… you hang on to them. Excess baggage.
I didn’t say that living forgiven is easy – we know ourselves and what we’ve done or said (or not done/said) and if we really regret it, we tend to allow yesterday to control us. If the Lord has forgotten it… we need to do the same. And He’s said He would remove it as far as the east is from the west and that when we do confess it, He will forgive AND cleanse us (1 John 1:9).
Jesus came that we might live an abundant life. But this is impossible unless we let go of yesterday’s mistakes/sins and walk and live in forgiveness. When that burden is lifted… we truly are free indeed. And yes… I do write about forgiveness often. This is because I believe that if we don’t act/live forgiven that our message is diluted by our behavior.
