“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.
The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific Ocean, was measured by US scientists in 2010 to a depth of 36,070 feet. That’s almost seven miles deep. If you could lift Mt. Everest and place it in this spot, it would still be covered by over a mile of water.
That’s where God buries our sins when he forgives them. “In the depths of the sea.” No man can descend to that depth. Only the most sophisticated robot has ever descended into the Challenger Deep. No one can ever dredge up your sins from there and hold them against you. So far as God is concerned, there your forgiven sins stay even till judgment day.
“The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” -Psalm 103:12
How far is east from west? Who can measure it? So far has God separated your sin from you, never to touch you or condemn you again. Men may still accuse you and trouble you, but God does not know what they are talking about, so far away has he removed your sins.
“For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” – Jeremiah 31:34
God, who is omniscient, who knows the beginning as he knows the end, chooses not to remember your sins. He has forgotten them when he forgives them. He will remember them no more, not even on judgment day. They are gone. Washed away in the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. Let the devil accuse you of all you’ve ever done. All to no avail, for God remembers them no more. He has buried them in the Challenger Deep. He has removed them from you as far as east is from west.
It is a wonderful thing to be forgiven by someone you’ve wronged. It is a soul-stirring, goose bump-raising experience to be forgiven by God. Let’s all strive to forgive as God has forgiven us. Yes, it is difficult, no, impossible, for us to do. But we can strive. Let sin go when you forgive. Do not bring it up again once it is resolved. Act as if it is buried in the ocean deep. Choose to think about it no more. Refuse to charge it to the sinner ever again.
How wonderful to know the length, and width, and depth, and forgetfulness in God’s forgiveness. This is what it means to be forgiven by God. May the people in your life know that that is what your forgiveness also means. Thank God every day for His unfathomable gift of forgiveness, for it is all through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ our Lord.
-Pastor Anderson