Unfathomable Grace

Today, I want to be like God. He casts our sins into the sea of forgetfulness. I want to do the same.

Micah 7:19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

Today, I want to be like God. He remembers our sins no more.

Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

Today, I think of one of the verses in the famous hymn, “All for Jesus.”

“Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus, I’ve lost sight of all beside. So enchained my spirit’s vision, looking at the crucified.”

Friends, we cannot do anything about our past failings. There is no reset button. There are no mulligans. We cannot go back and undo the harm. We have done what we have done. We have sinned grossly against our God. We have harmed our neighbors. We have harmed ourselves.

So what can we do? Take a fresh look at Philippians 3:8-4:1.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

We can intellectually and emotionally know Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

We can view any supposed righteousness of our own as rubbish and stand in awestruck amazement at his gifted righteousness — a righteousness that comes through faith and not human performance.

We can forget what lies behind.

We can press on and strain towards the glorious perfection which lies ahed.

We can wait for our glorious Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will powerfully transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.

Friends, I know we should have done better. I know we should have been perfectly holy. I know sin is vile and satanic. However, my repenting friends, I also know to forget is divine. I know, from the Philippians passage above, to forget is the way mature Christians think.

God is love. He keeps no record of wrongs and neither should the godly.