What Sin?

On Sunday morning, a young lady at our church sang this song. I'd heard it before, but this time it really spoke to my heart in a meaningful way.

See, I have this bad habit of remembering things I did long ago - mean things, or bad things, disobedient things - and beating myself up over them. Again and again. These are things that I've made right with God and whomever I wronged. But I still feel badly about them. I mean, stuff from twenty years ago! Why is that?

Let me state right here that if I've done wrong, I should feel guilty for breaking fellowship with my Savior. The Holy Spirit's work is to convict my heart and lead me to repentance. How can I repent if I refuse to acknowledge what I've done?

But once the Holy Spirit has done His work and I've confessed my sin, the guilt is gone. Or should be. Yet still it lingers. Satan loves to use this as a tool to discourage me and keep me from being useful to God. "See what a terrible person you are? Look at what you did when you were nine/fifteen/twenty-five years old! God can never use a sinner like you!" he loves to whisper. There's a reason the Bible refers to him as the Old Accuser.

And so often I agree with him. "I am a terrible person! So stupid! I knew better when I did that! Ugh! I can never do anything for the Lord since I'm such a sinner!"

But the truth, the beauty of grace, is that God puts my sins under the blood of Jesus and remembers them no more. He will never, NEVER, bring them up to me again. I might have to deal with the natural consequences of my sin, but they do not and can never condemn me before God. My sin is gone the very minute I confess!

This post is linked to Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers.