185. Not Remember Sin
Isaiah 64:9 Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
Both Isaiah and Jeremiah give us God’s promise: “I will remember your sins no more.” Because we are God’s people we are holy and sinless; as His people the Lord does not remember our sin any more and He will not ever again forever. It is hard to imagine that God cannot do something, since He can do all things. The truth is, God could remember our sins if He wanted to. He chose not to. Why? Because of His total, unconditional and eternal love He chooses not to remember our sin.
However, we sinners, who don’t believe God so perfectly, do remember our sins. We may even remind God of many of the past sins for which we feel the guiltiest. And the devil helps us remember; he reminds us over and over of all the sins we have committed and omitted. The devil wants us to experience guilt and shame without letup; and he wants to drive us to despair, so that maybe we give up and take our own life. So we must say to Satan: “God does not remember; so be gone!” If God does not remember, who do I think I am that I remember?
Remembering is an art. It takes wisdom and discipline to remember the good things and forget the bad things. Ask the Lord for such wisdom. God forgot all the sins; God remembers the blood of Christ. This is our daily job: remembering and forgetting: we may daily forget our sins and failures and remember God’s forgiveness and love. We remember our Baptism by drowning the old man in repentance and rising to new life by faith. In Holy Communion we “Do this in remembrance of me.” Again, we prepare for Communion by sincere repentance and faith. We remind ourselves again and again of the forgiveness of sins and the life and love of God daily when we receive Jesus Christ and His Gospel message. With Paul we do what he does in Philippians 3:13-14: “ 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.”
Take hold of this promise and ask God for the wisdom to know what to forget and what to remember. Remember what God remembers and forget what God forgets.