Answer the Door

 April 7, 2023

This morning I woke with the heaviness of past sins weighing upon me. The thought of lost opportunities, forfeited spiritual power, compromised labor haunts me. In one word—regret. Juxtaposed on that regret is the sure knowledge of forgiveness. I remember all too clearly what God says he has forgotten: “I will remember your sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34). If Jeremiah didn’t make it clear enough, that promise is repeated twice in the New Testament (Hebrews 8:12 and 10:17).

“But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

—II Corinthians 6:4, 10 

Jesus himself taught us to forgive as we have been forgiven. We usually apply that to other people, but sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. Yet we are commanded to do so. Forgiving ourselves is not optional; it is commanded of us to let go of all that is past so we may live for today and eternity. St. Paul said it well: 

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended (or “arrived”); but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

—Philippians 3:13-14 

Paul had persecuted Christians, rounding them up and sending them to jail and death. If anyone would have reason to live in regrets, it would have been Paul. Instead, he lived in joy. How, you say? He knew that in Jesus Christ, his past was wiped out so completely that it was dead to him. Listen again to his wisdom:

“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” —Philippians 3:7-11 

As far as Paul was concerned, his old life was dead and buried. He was raised with Christ to new life:

“And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

—Colossians 2:13-15 

Tonight I am so grateful to know that God has wiped away the record that stood against me. Sure, the devil keeps knocking at my heart’s door, trying to remind me of my past. When he does so, I just ask Jesus to answer the door. When he does, no one is there!