Psalm 128-136

July 4

Psalm 128-136

"If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared." (Psalm 130:3-4, NIV)

If God kept a record of our sins, we would all be doomed for hell. But when we confess our sin and turn from them, He purifies us, He wipes them out. He moves them as far as the east is from the west and the two never meet. He is not like our friends and family members who forgive, but in their humanness do not forget.

We may not be able to forgive ourselves, but God forgives us completely. When we come to God and bring up something for which we have already been forgiven, He says; “what sin are you talking about.” It is gone. We should not choose to remember what God has chosen to forget. The only sin God will not forgive is the sin we will not confess.

Corrie ten Boom put it well when she said, "God has taken our sin. He has thrown it into the sea of forgetfulness, and He has posted a sign that says, 'No fishing allowed.' " There is true forgiveness in God. We may not be able to forgive ourselves, but God forgives and if we can conceive how much He has forgiven us, we are empowered to forgive others.

God’s goal is not to condemn us, it is not to strike us dead, God’s desire is for us to turn to Him, to seek and receive forgiveness and live eternally with Him. God said through the prophet Ezekiel; "Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’" (Ezekiel 33:11, NIV)