I Will Forget Your Sins

Daily Devotional – Thursday, August 10, 2023
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.
Hebrews 8:12 (NKJV)

Ken is a free man after spending his entire teenage and youth years behind bars. However, he is finding it hard to reenter society. To begin with, his mother is not willing to forgive him. In addition, society is unwilling to forget his sins. Everywhere Ken turns, people look at him with suspicion.

Forever Guilty

James is another ex-convict. Unlike Ken, he has been free for many years. A Christian organization adopted him in his youth, gave him a decent education, and helped him integrate into the community. Today, James needs financial assistance for a crucial surgery. Some people, though, are unwilling to help him because he is ostensibly paying for his past sins.

Such is the quagmire of ex-prisoners that many of them decide to fall back into crime in order to return to the familiar and friendlier environment of jail. Ken asserts that 90% of former death row convicts die within the first year of release due to stigma, isolation, and depression. Even the best-reformed offenders find no mercy from an unforgiving populace.

I Will be Merciful to their Unrighteousness

Now, if God were a jailer, using our sins as justification to lock us up, how many of us would be free? Moreover, if He forgave us and granted us freedom, how happy would we be if He continued stigmatizing us owing to our sinful pasts? Because He is unlike human beings, God promises, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Hebrews 8:12).

When God forgives you, you do not need to carry the guilt of your past sins like Ken and James. God wants you to start with a clean slate. Society may treat you like a sinner even when you have changed, but God will never use your past to discredit your present. Once he forgives you, your past does not matter. That is how divine forgiveness works.

I Will Forgive Your Sins

God reminds you, “I have forgiven your sins.” Why, then, do you keep tormenting yourself with guilt? Are you fair to yourself when you allow people to rub in your past wrongs and insist you must walk around with shame and remorse? Once you lay your sin burden at the foot of the cross, do not return to pick up the load. God no longer remembers your sin.

Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You because You have forgiven me, forgotten my sins and given me another chance to lead a righteous life.