Listen to Nancy’s answer recorded live on Moody radio, here:
Religion does strange things to people. It can make us feel like someone has a choke hold on us. It can make us feel continually guilty with no hope of ever experiencing forgiveness or getting to know God personally as a loving father.
Yes, we know that God is omniscient, meaning He knows all things and is all powerful meaning He can do things that we humans cannot. How does He choose to deal with our sin? Yes, He died for our sins and when we put our full trust in Him, He chooses to forgive us of all our sin, past, present and future. He gives us His Righteousness so He can have a personal relationship with all who believe. Unlike us, He chooses not to remember our sin; He gives us grace when we deserve judgement.
Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
The distance from east to west cannot be measured because there is no starting or stopping point. God completely removes our sins. When Jesus died on the cross, He cried out, “It is finished”, meaning that He made full payment for our sin. When we come to Him in faith believing that He died for our sins, we receive complete forgiveness.
“God declares, ‘I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins’” (Isaiah 43:25).
“‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’ Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin” (Hebrews 10:17–18).
“In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. … For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:19–21).
it is true that all Christians still struggle with sin (1 John 1:8). We still need to ask for forgiveness of our sin to restore open fellowship with God. But, “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).
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
God does not want us to set our minds on those things of the past. Now that we are free from the penalties of sin, we can be free to be the person God intended us to be. We are no longer slaves to our flesh; we no longer have to entertain feelings of false guilt. We are totally and completely forgiven. We need to live that way!
We can “forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead, press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13).