August 22, 2021
“No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jeremiah 31:34
Our compassionate God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah of a future day in which He will not remember my sins. Such a thought is too wonderful for me! It is not that He is planning for Himself a lobotomy. His way of dealing with sin and its sticky residue is so thorough, so complete, so supernatural, that my finite mind cannot fully grasp how the process works. Yet, the end result will be a multitude of inhabitants for Heaven who are washed clean from any and every desire to break God’s law. Love for the Savior will drive out every such impulse. I want to love Him that much! A good start to fuel such a desire is to go on an all-out exploration/expedition tour of His love for me. His Holy Spirit is both willing and able to guide such a tour, but be warned: the depths and power of His love can never be exhausted!
One of the ways that I am helped to appreciate what He is doing in my life is to stumble across something from my past—perhaps some form of media entertainment—that now makes me cringe. Praise the LORD for deliverance from old ways that were harmful to mind and body! I am learning that mind and body are designed to work in harmony with each other (see Romans 12:1-2).
How is it possible for God to forget? Even though we can know Him (John 17:3), there are things we are given to understand (Deuteronomy 29:29), and others we are not (Romans 11:33). Oh, how often we have memories of missed opportunities to do good, or memories of sins of commission that inflict soul-wrenching anguish! Clearly, we would all like to forget terrible things that we have thought, said, acted upon . . . and we would also like to forget the hurts that have been put upon us by fellow human beings. If memories of past sins, my own or someone else’s, come into my mind—even if they are brought there by Satan—I must consider that God has allowed it. It may be for any of several possible reasons:
§ Perhaps I, through gritted teeth, have exercised human willpower to abandon a specific sin for a set period of time. It is high time to give it entirely to God while relying upon His power to delete it from my life altogether and forever. Even repentance itself is a gift from God (see 2 Timothy 2:25), which is a great subject for fervent prayer for myself and others.
§ Here is a faith-building opportunity: by faith, let each of us claim the promise that God will not bring our confessed sins back to our faces. It is Satan, the accuser, who does that in an attempt to weaken our faith in God’s power to set us free from the yoke of sin. God has a different yoke that He invites us to choose, whereby He comes alongside us, if we will allow, for gentle training (see Matthew 11:28-30).
§ As citizens of heaven who live in this fallen world, remembrance of past pain can have the effect of building a compassionate nature toward others who are suffering. Our role as ambassadors is to invite, to woo, to win our fellow man away from the entanglements of the world. It is in pointing toward the perfect love of our compassionate Savior that someone may be attracted and drawn toward Jesus. And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8
The Holy Spirit also witnesses to us . . . “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Hebrews 10:15-17