Through Jesus Our Sins Are Forgiven and Forgotten
What happens after we sin? From a physical and emotional standpoint there may be consequences that we’ll have to deal with.
From a spiritual standpoint, those who follow Jesus need to confess their sins to their Savior. He will forgive us and purify us. We can count on it (1 John 1:9).
When we turn our sins over to God and confess them, he forgives them and remembers them no more (Hebrews 8:12).
But what about us? Do we still hang on to them? How good are we at forgiving ourselves? Do we wallow in guilt?
Consider how we can react once we confess our sins.
Always Remember Them
If our sins bothered us enough to take time to confess them, it’s likely that we’re bound to remember them. With those remembrances come embarrassment, shame, or guilt. Maybe all three.
These memories of our past failures can negatively shape our future actions. That is, we allow past sins to define us, which predisposes us to repeat them.
We may tell ourselves, “It’s just who I am,” or “It’s my nature to do that.” Mentally this gives us an out the next time we mess up. Spiritually it’s the wrong path to take.
Holding on to past mistakes also can affect our self-perceptions, which could be inaccurate and are likely to point our behavior in the wrong direction.
If God forgave and forgot our sins, we need to do a better job at forgiving ourselves and leaving them in the past where they belong.
Immediately Forget Them
The opposite extreme is to immediately forget our sins. We mess up. We confess. And we forget.
With nary a thought we move on with our life. Yet this can also have negative consequences.
Having forgotten our sins, we’re prone to repeat them. If we let go of our past mistakes too quickly, they can easily become a habit—our new normal. We fall into habitual sin.
We may claim that it doesn’t matter because we’re forgiven through grace. With this thought, Paul asked the rhetorical question, “Should we keep sinning to showcase God’s grace?” Then he gives the obvious answer, “No way!” (Romans 6:1-2).
If we willingly continue to walk in sin after we commit to following Jesus, we’re living a lie and miss the truth (1 John 1:6). If we persist in habitual sin, there is no longer a sacrifice to atone for our sins and get rid of them (Hebrews 10:26).
With this in mind, we can see that forgiving ourselves too quickly and forgetting our sins may not be the best approach either.
Instead, we need to find a healthy balance between these two extremes.
Learn and Move On
As soon as we recognize our sin, we’re wise to confess it to God. As we’ve already said, he will then forgive us, purify us, and remember our sin no more.
Next, we thank him for his forgiveness and his grace.
Then we seek how we can avoid repeating that same mistake. We may need to avoid certain places that can put us in troublesome situations.
We might need to stop specific activities that open us to temptation. Or, perhaps, we might need to curtail the time we spend with a certain individual, who tends to bring out the worst in us.
It might be a combination of all three.
We conclude by asking God to guide us into implementing the changes we now know we need to make.
At this point, it’s time for us to move on. We forgive ourselves from the mistake we made, just as God forgave us. And we forget what we did, just as God has already forgotten it.
Yet we remember the lifestyle changes that we want to make to keep us from repeating the same sin.
When we do so, it’s not to earn or maintain our salvation. Instead is to thank God for the salvation we’ve already received as we seek to live a life that honors him.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront a status quo faith and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.
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