Distance is a Heart Away

[HKHaugan]

Distance is a Heart Away 

One the of the truly great promises of God is His forgiveness of sins.  Specifically, it happens at the point of our repentance.  Regardless of the sins we commit, when we are repentant He forgives us and then does one more thing to deal with them.   That one more thing is, He forgets the sins.  I know that’s hard to grasp especially since we ourselves tend to hang on to hurts and pains others have caused.  But that’s what sin gets us to indulge in.  We feel guilt, remorse and certainly doubt at the pressure points of life.  We can wallow in those negatives or accept the deeper truth of God’s readiness to bring us out of those self-destructive tendencies.  

See what Scripture says about that: 

 First, “In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back (Is.38:17).”

Second, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more (Is.43:25).”

Third, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more (Jer.31:34).”

Fourth, “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).”

Now, right here, we need a dose of honesty.  Before we assume we understand those words, let’s jump into an insight about human behavior and its motivations and then return to the above promises.  Each of us may believe in an external system of belief that forms our personal morality but, at the same time, we give it our own personal fit as we see the situation.  It’s our personal moment by moment moral adjustment.  That’s because we each have our own self-perception of right and wrong, a personal way of adapting our basic belief to the moral demands of the moment.  We may declare we believe in a ‘Ten Commandments’ morality but how it works in any moment will depend on the unique response an individual interprets is best for that moment.  We don’t just think and do the right thing automatically.  There is that rationalization factor we can’t overlook.

 There’s another aspect that enters here.  Behind every thought and its consequent action is the need for self-justification.  We have this deep need to be right and to do right and the ability to give a reason for the motivation behind our actions.  We want to be able to tell ourselves we did the right thing at the right time for the right reason.  Also, we want to be able to take this self-justification as our defense if others are involved.  Tell me this process doesn’t go on in each of us every day.  Yet, how many of us will claim good intention as an escape clause for our imperfections?  You know, ‘we’re all just human,’ ‘we do the best we can,’ ‘I’m really a good person at heart.’  Those define part of the nature of sin with its self-denial, self-excusing and self-justifying.

The problem is this.  If we are constantly self-dependent, surviving from moment to moment, it can wear us down and the feeling of aloneness becomes overwhelming and depressing.  The internal processing of right and wrong is the deepest burden in each of us.  It is a daily battleground. And, the weight of the internal battle can never be resolved until someone comes along that can help us carry the burden and see us through the battle. 

 Right here is where a relationship with Jesus makes sense.  He’s been through the daily process and the battle.  He met the process with faith in the Word and will of His Father and the battle with the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is why He was crucified.  Religion didn’t work but the relationship with His Father did.  He rose from the dead.

When you read the Gospels, you see His daily encounters and how He is upfront with everyone.  He is a picture of honest evaluation, respect and response.  He is totally self-confident, calm and unflappable.  There is never any hesitation, regret or remorse but complete trust in the will of His Father.  Now here is the proof of His perfection as a human being, He never doubts and never feels guilty spiritually, emotionally, personally or relationally.  And here’s the really big thing He never does: He never tries to justify Himself.   Only a perfect person can live this way.  People who recognize these qualities in Jesus will turn to Him if they are honest with themselves.  He is the only One who can forgive the moral inconsistencies we all possess.  We were born with them and need spiritual rebirth to deal with them.  Jesus offers that to everyone beginning with forgiveness.

 That’s pretty conclusive.  Forgiveness is the part of God’s grace that overrides the worst in us and proves His compassion for the fallenness that besets us every day.   One thing to identify in all of this is the guilt, the regret, the remorse that follows our self-perception of right and wrong.   David felt it was always before him (Ps.51:3). 

 Some people try and make up for their sins by doing what they believe are good things that make up for their past.  Others try and bury them through hard work or some activity they feel will relieve them.  Still others keep them close to the surface in order to feel the pain, a kind of self-martyrdom.  Then there is the denial technique.  Just deny what you feel.  None of those work.  There is a reason they don’t work.  It’s because they don’t go away and there is that slow awakening to the fact that we can’t save ourselves.  We need an external personal touch from someone who comes and says, ‘I forgive you.’  This is a heart thing.  Some of it is emotional of course, but the real problem is the heart which tries to heal itself.  Sin is every person’s heart issue.

Back to the golden verses of forgiveness.  The dynamics of daily personal moral adjustment need a savior.  The Lord Jesus is the only one who fits that bill.  He is the only one who can cancel our tendencies to try and save ourselves from ourselves by ourselves. 

 First, “In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back (Is.38:17).”

Second, “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more (Is.43:25).”

Third, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more (Jer.31:34).”

Fourth, “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).”

 To seal these truths here is a fifth, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (Ps.103:12).”