Victory Through Prayer

In him we have redemptions through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace . . . (Ephesians 1:70)

God wants you to know that you are forgiven. Throught Christ, your sins are wiped away, and the record of your transgressions has been marked “paid in full” (Colossians 2:14). God forgives you fully and completely. He forgives and he forgets. He doesn’t keep a list of your failures and wrongdoing. Once you confess your sins, that’s it – if you are truly repentant.

Knowing someone is angry with you can weigh you down, especially if it’s someone you are close to, someone whose friendship you really value. It’s amazing how the heaviness disappears though, when you know you’ve been truly forgiven and that the person who was upset with you welcomes you back into their life. This is how it is with you and God. There’s no more weight of separation between you and him because you’ve been restored to him, forgiven and cleansed from all sin through the blood of Jesus.

Many people think that, in order to show how sorry they are, they have to always be reminding themselves of their past sins and failures. They talk about how sinful and weak they are, and all the mistakes they’ve made, and how many times they’ve failed God and messed up. As if constantly remembering these things is some form of humility showing God how seriously they take their mistakes.

Since God forgives you, he certainly doesn’t want you constantly beating yourself up over your past sins. He isn’t going to drag them up to use against you in the future. They are forgiven and forgotten. God’s forgiveness lifts the weight of guilt, shame, and condemnation right off of us. It restores us to full fellowship with him.