A clean slate

Forgiveness is a beautiful gift that God has given us. We’ve all done things that we know we shouldn’t have, that we wish with all our hearts we hadn’t done. I’m sure that I’m not alone in having found myself at the bottom of a sad and hopeless hole that I knew I had dug myself into. All my own fault. Wish I had known better. Should have known better. Never should have done it. And so we try to make amends, to put things right. But the thought looms large: We cannot turn back time. We cannot un-do things that have already been done. And so the cycle of despair continues. I’ve been there.

But the Bible is clear about the fact that the Christian believer is not called to carry the guilt of their past wrongs around with them.

In Isaiah 1:18 in the Bible, we read:

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

I will never forget the day when I suddenly grasped that when we confess our sins to God and ask for His forgiveness, He wipes our slate completely clean. Human logic tells us that we cannot un-do things that have already been done. But God’s word promises: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17). In God’s eyes, when we stand before Him, there will be no trace of that sin for which we sought and received forgiveness. We go from scarlet red to pure white, through God’s grace and forgiveness.

So whatever our past, there is always hope in Christ. And if we want an example from the Bible of how God can turn anyone’s life around and use them for His glory, we only need to look at the Apostle Paul, who called himself “the worst of sinners” in 1 Timothy 1:16. Before Paul encountered God and decided to become a follower of Christ, he mercilessly persecuted and killed many Christians. And yet, after his conversion, he went on to become a great disciple of Christ, bringing many into the kingdom of God, both during his lifetime as well as now through the many New Testament letters that we now have in the Bible.

The account of Paul’s life in the Bible offers us hope that any life can be turned around. And it also reminds us that we need to accept God’s forgiveness and forgive ourselves too in the process. It is NOT saintly for Christian believers to continually feel guilty for their past sins and to hit themselves over the head again and again with the memory of it. If we cannot get past our past mistakes, even after having confessed them to God and repenting, and even though God forgives us, it will be very difficult for us to live in the freedom and victory that God intended for us. Why? Because we are essentially telling God that we don’t believe what His Word says. And His Word says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). If GOD forgives us, shouldn’t we forgive ourselves?

Here is something I read recently by Steve Diggs that I think puts this across very nicely. It’s from an article published in crosswalk.com entitled “The Toughest Job: Forgiving Yourself“:

I appreciate the words of a man who himself had committed plenty of sins and hurt lots of people. Paul had jailed and murdered a multitude of Christians before he accepted Jesus himself. What a burden to carry! Can you imagine how many times he must have looked out at an audience and caught the eye of a woman whom he had widowed? How many young people did he preach Jesus to whom he had orphaned? And don’t you suppose that Paul wondered over and over, “Paul, you hypocrite! What right do you have to preach when you are the worst of the bunch?” Paul had to deal with this. I suspect he frequently drenched his pillow with tears and filled his waking hours with self-loathing. But instead of melting into a pity puddle, he saw the big picture.

These words from the good apostle have brought a lot of us through some deep waters. “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

God’s forgiveness allows us to put the past behind us, and to press on towards the future. A clean slate. White as snow. A chance to start over. Without a burden labelled “guilt” hanging round our necks.

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Photograph (by R Tang): Snow in Beijing, 2010

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