GOD’S FORGIVE-AND-FORGET HEART

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE” – Hebrews 8:12

The hearts of Believers in Christ are meant to reflect GOD’S FORGIVE-AND-FORGET HEART: “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE” (Heb.8:12). This was true in God’s Old Covenant relationship with Israel, as it is with His New Covenant relationship with Believers in Christ! Because it is in the human nature to keep score of other people’s faults and sins, whether written on paper or etched in our memories, we might have had cause to wonder: Maybe God forgives, but does He forget? Does God really forget our sins? Scriptures severally affirm that God not only forgives our sins and transgressions; He also forgets them! He removes them “as far as the east is from the west” (Psa.103:12).

We must learn to thank God that He does not keep a record of our sins, once they’re acknowledged, confessed, and repented of. God could fill volumes of books with our sins, toss them in our faces, and refuse to have anything more to do with us. If He did, we would not stand a chance: “If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (Psa.130:3). Rather than store sins, God made a “Forgive-and-Forget” covenant with Israel, as evident in several scriptures:

• “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa.1:18). This describes an irreversible process of Grace – forgiveness, followed by supernatural transformation from sin and unrighteousness into purity and righteousness!

• “I, even, am He who BLOTS OUT your transgressions for My own sake, and I WILL NOT REMEMBER YOUR SINS” (Isa.43:25). God has pushed the delete button on our sins and on the accompanying guilt and shame.

• “…O Israel, you will not be forgotten by Me! I have BLOTTED OUT, like a thick cloud, your transgressions, and like a cloud, your sins. Return to Me, for I have redeemed you” (Isa.44:21b-22). This is God’s way of saying that He wouldn’t hold Israel’s sins against them. Much more, for us in Christ, God wouldn’t act toward us on the basis of our sin.

• “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE” (Jer.31:34b). God forgives and forgets! He no longer counts our sins against us. He does not cast us off, but continues to give His Grace in spite of our errors and failures. Thus, He continues to use us to share with others the Grace we have received!

• “He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will CAST ALL OUR SINS into the depths of the sea” (Mic.7:19).

David described “the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works”: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is tha man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin” (Rom.4:6-8). The New Living Translation says, “Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of sin” (Rom.4:8). When we confess our sin to God, He lifts it off our shoulders, rolls it away, and it disappears out of His sight (Psa.32:1,5). When God forgives sin He puts it out of His mind; He deletes and erases it from the pages of time; He forgets our transgressions!

If the Lord could honour His covenant with Isreal, will He not much more honour His New Covenant in Christ? Hebrews10: 16-17 express this succintly: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” On this basis, Paul affirmed: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God…” (2 Cor. 5:17-18a).