Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:28 — 19.9MB)
(Mary) I want us to look on the other side of forgiveness—when we have personally been forgiven and yet we don’t seem to enjoy that forgiveness. This thought came to me in one of my daily prayer zoom meetings which we’ve been having with the women in my church since COVID shut us down, and this dear woman asked God to forgive her because she knew she was forgiven by him, yet she wasn’t enjoying her forgiveness. And I immediately thought of many people I know who would fall into that category—including myself at times.
I remember a time many years ago now, when I had come back to full fellowship with the Lord after a long period of chasing my dreams and living life my way. I was truly sorry for my wayward ways and had confessed them. I knew that God had forgiven me, but one day as I was praying, some of those past sins just came flooding back into my mind. And I was once again ashamed and embarrassed and so regretful that I had allowed those sins into my life. So, I started asking God once again for forgiveness, specifically confessing them. And honestly, the voice of God’s Spirit to me that day was almost audible, as I heard him say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Isaiah 43:25 says: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Have you ever tried to erase something from your memory?
(Alice) There are things I would like to forget and I try to forget but I can’t totally erase things from my memory—at least not the things I’d like to erase.
(Julie) It seems that the things I’d like to “remember no more,” as the Bible puts it, are the things that hang around my mind while I forget lots of good things that I should remember.
(Mary) It’s a common human problem—we remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember. And who do you think aids and abets us in that process? The enemy of our soul, Satan himself. If he can keep us mired in the regrets from yesterday, in the guilt we insist on carrying with us even though God has forgiven us, then he steals our joy, robs our peace, and keeps us in bondage to the past.
That’s why I want to encourage everyone to enjoy your forgiveness. But of course, in order to do that, you have to confess whatever sin there is in your life, forsake it, and ask God to forgive you.
(Alice) And the good news is that he is always willing to forgive us. First John 1:9 makes that very clear. It says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
(Mary) It couldn’t be clearer or simpler—maybe not easy, but simple—to get our hearts right with God and have that peace he alone can give by confessing our sins. Why are we so reluctant to get the slate clean with the Lord? It’s always for our good and his glory when we do, and yet so many cling to the sin that so easily entangles them, as we read in Hebrews 12:1, and that unconfessed sin blocks your fellowship with the Lord. And of course, you just make yourself miserable when you do.
(Julie) I think that a Christian who is refusing to confess known sin and keeps hanging on—even something that may seem small and not important—that person is more miserable than a person who is not a follower of Jesus Christ and indulging in the same sin. It’s the Holy Spirit within us that becomes very uncomfortable—or offended or grieved—when we harbor unconfessed sin.
(Mary) The first thing is to make sure you have confessed your sin, turned from it, and you know God has forgiven you. Make sure of that.
But I’m sure there are many who have done that and yet they keep asking God again and again to forgive them for what he has already forgiven? Now if you’re continuing to sin again and again, that’s not what I’m talking about. But if you have confessed and forsaken whatever sin it was, do you continue to think about it, regret it, ask God to forgive you again?
If so, I would say to you what the Holy Spirit said to me: God doesn’t know what you’re talking about! He has chosen to remember your sins no more once they are forgiven and forsaken. Now, honestly, I think God is probably the only one who can truly erase his memory if he chooses to. You and I in these earthly bodies with our sin natures, we just don’t have that miraculous power to totally forget. I get that.
But we do have the power through Jesus Christ to bring our thoughts into captivity and make them obey Christ–2 Corinthians 10:5–and thoughts that are obedient to Christ are not dwelling on sins that have been forgiven. Any time your mind takes you to that place of regret, or guilt, or remorse or shame, you can be assured that is from the evil one. He would love for you to dwell in that place, and he will shoot his flaming arrows of regret and guilt at you as long as they succeed.
When that happens, you are not enjoying your forgiveness. It’s as though you’ve forgotten that God has forgiven you, or you think he still intends to punish you for it, or perhaps you are just so sorry it happened that you can’t put it behind you. God is not honored in that way, is he?
You and I should enjoy our forgiveness just as we enjoy our redemption. You praise God for saving you, giving you hope and a future, ensuring you of eternity with him. Should you not also be praising God that he has forgiven you of that sin from your past, or that sin from yesterday? That is the glorious truth that changes your life. So enjoy your forgiveness.
(Alice) What does it mean to enjoy your forgiveness?
(Mary) We know that salvation is a gift from God. Ephesians 2:8-9 says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” So, when you receive a gift, how does it make you feel?
(Julie) It should make you feel good—happy, joyful. It’s free—you didn’t have to work for it or spend money for it or shop for it. It’s a gift, and it is meant to be enjoyed.
(Mary) And if I gave you a gift and you didn’t enjoy it, how would that make me feel?
(Alice) Not good, that’s for sure. I would be disappointed if you didn’t like or enjoy a gift I gave you. I mean, when I choose to give someone a gift, the greatest joy for me is seeing that they like it, that they want it and they are enjoying it.
(Mary) God gives us the gift of salvation—the gift of forgiveness—without charge, even though we don’t deserve it, and he loves to see us enjoy our gift of forgiveness. So, it certainly does not please God when we don’t let go of our regrets from the past. And you do this by faith—and without faith it’s impossible to please God. What are things we do everyday by faith?
(Julie) I guess by faith I flip on the light switch, believing it will give me light. And by faith I get on an airplane—well, at least someday I’ll get on an airplane again—and I believe that big hunk of a machine will fly me somewhere. By faith I click on my Zoom link and believe it will connect me with people all over the world.
(Alice) By faith I push an app on my smart phone and it takes me to a certain place. I have no idea how apps work, but I use them all day every day, and I enjoy them. They make my life easier.
(Mary) All day long every day we are doing things by faith. Some of those things we may understand, like how the internet works or how electricity works. But I don’t know how any of it works and yet I use it and enjoy it every day of my life—by faith. Why is it so difficult for us to accept by faith that God has forgiven us, he remembers our sins no more and it is dishonoring to him for us to continue to live in regret or guilt?
(Mary) We know from Scripture that the joy of the Lord is our strength. If someone or something takes your strength away, what happens? Well, not much. I’ve just gone through a medical procedure that took my strength. I had to pretty much do nothing for a few days because my strength was gone. When your spiritual strength is missing—when the enemy steals it from you—the same thing happens. You lose your ability to get things done for Jesus. You lose your joyful countenance, your joyful attitude—those things that testify to others about your faith.
And don’t you know that the enemy loves to steal your joy? Honestly, it is one of his most effective weapons and one of his most subtle ones, because we often just don’t see that he is behind our loss of joy. We don’t recognize that flaming arrow he shoots at us. So, if you are not really enjoying the forgiveness you have in Jesus, I’m hoping your take-away today will be that you understand it is a tool of the enemy and it dishonors the one who has forgiven you, Jesus Christ, when you are not living in the joy and the peace and the strength that is yours when you enjoy your forgiveness.
Here’s a quote from an article I read by Luke Roland:
The truth is, Christianity as a religion really has only one participant and that is Jesus. We are not participants, but recipients. We receive and we receive the most amazing gift we could ever receive, which is forgiveness. This is why I believe it is important for us right now to understand our justification and to take our forgiveness very seriously so we are not tossed around by a new false doctrine.
And that false doctrine is that forgiveness is something you have to earn or work for. You have to pay for your sins, your mistakes, your wrong choices. And then of course, you can never enjoy your forgiveness, because you can never pay for it or earn it. So, it’s a catch 22. But Jesus has come to set you free from that bondage. As Galatians 5:1 tells us:
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
My prayer is that you will begin now to enjoy your forgiveness and keep learning to do that. You do that by bring every thought into captivity—those thoughts of guilt and regret—grabbing them and replacing them with the truth that you are forgiven. Truth sets you free.