I:60 SINNING FOR THE FIRST TIME
SINNING FOR THE FIRST TIME
A month ago, my father sent me a verse he had come across during his studies, which stood out to him and he wanted to share with me. The verse is in Hebrews 8:12, which says, 'For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.' I couldn't shake the last part of the verse, “and I will remember their sins no more.” I know God doesn't forget, and knowing this made the verse stand out even more. It's not that God actually forgets our sins; it's that He has the ability to never recall them, use them against us, or hold them over our heads. When we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins. He also says in Micah 7:19, 'I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.' From those verses, we can make this statement: Each time we come to God in repentance of our sin, He demonstrates true and perfect forgiveness, seeing it as our first and only sin. God is not naive or a pushover because of this, but rather He is faithful in His promised covenant of salvation, which was covered by the blood of His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Any other type of forgiveness would limit the power of the cross. This type of forgiveness is difficult for us to understand, and we demonstrate that in how we continue to hold on to our sin once we give it up to Him. God even assures us again in Psalm 103:12, 'as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.' We have a tendency to subject ourselves to shame after we have been forgiven, rather than what God intended forgiveness to actually produce, which is conviction leading to change, rather than shame leading to self-pity. Shame and self-pity insult the cross; conviction and change glorify it. Now, there is one small detail that we must draw our attention to, and it's going to hurt. Colossians 3:13 says, 'bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; “AS” the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” In other words you are to forgive others in the same type of forgiveness that he forgives you. Here are a few other verses of that true and perfect forgiveness.
“Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Luke 17:3-4 ESV
“Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Matthew 18:21-22 ESV
Striving for true perfect forgiveness will not be easy, and it’s been difficult in my personal journey with Christ, but what I have experienced is that when I repent of my sin to God and no longer allow my forgiven sin to be my identity, I have a better understanding and a true desire rather than a “have to” in the hopes of forgiving those around me in the same way God has forgiven me. Remember “shame causes self-pity and conviction causes change.”
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