SATURDAY 2nd
Colossians 2:1-15
NIV (vv13b-14) – ‘He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.’
ESV (vv13b-14) – ‘. . . having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.’
What a place to start the new year, there is no better place than with a Scripture that takes us to the Cross, and what better than to be reminded that at the Cross everything that was written AGAINST us has been cancelled, taken away. We can visualise it this way, when Jesus lay on the Cross, as they took the hammer and nails, they were not only nailing his body to the Cross, but the list he held in his hand with all the charges written against us, and as the blood flowed, it ran over the list, blotting it out.
Isn’t this good news, EVERYTHING, ALL OUR TRESPASSES, and there is no doubt if we started writing a list of all the wrong we had done, we would never ever be able to complete it, yet he has wiped it all out! It is gone, it is forgiven, as far as God is concerned it will never be recalled and brought to light again.
Sometimes I have taken a memory card from my camera and accidently formatted it, erasing the photos before I had backed them up, but all is not lost, because it is possible to get some software that will search the memory card and seek to restore the photos. God will never do that with our erased sin, and yet sadly, we sometimes do it to ourselves, we drag up the past, we bring to memory the things we have done, and we start to condemn ourselves again, and ask questions such as ‘Has God really forgiven’ or ‘Can God really forgive that?’ Yes he has, yes he can and what’s more HE HAS not only forgiven it he has forgotten all about it, not because he has a bad memory, but because he has chosen to remember it no more. HE HAS erased it and will never recall it, that is the power that is in the blood of Jesus. Then of course we can be so quick to point out what someone else might have done, but if God has forgiven and forgotten the sin so also should we, the past is the past and the past needs to remain in the past and under the blood, because in coming to the Cross, in accepting Jesus we are given a brand new start. (Now of course, we are talking in the realm of redemption, and should someone be a Christian and something of their past catches up with them, then the law of the land still needs to be applied, but thankfully God will have dealt with it as far as eternity is concerned.)
Finally, although we are forgiven at the Cross, we find that we still sin, we say what we shouldn’t, we do what we shouldn’t, we think what we shouldn’t etc, and this sin needs to be dealt with, and it is as we come to the place of regularly confessing, that is one of the purposes of the place of communion, to put wrongs right before we partake, but we can also continually come before the mercy seat, to our Great High Priest and have the assurance of Scripture, that ‘if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ (1 John 1:9) Being saved, knowing our sin is forgiven, is great news, this is what we read in Romans 4:7-8 ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.’ (Paul quoting from Psalm 32:1-2)
Let us not count our sins of the past, but instead count the many blessings that come through our being renewed and placed in Christ and seek to live this year in a proper and right relationship with him and with each other. Knowing that should we sin so long as we stay in relationship with him, we have an advocate with the Father, ‘My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.’ (1 John 2:1-6)