The Lord makes available to Christian an innumerable sum of spiritual blessings—blessings which are beyond our full comprehension, beyond our imagination, beyond anything we can even measure. And, these blessings (which are of a spiritual nature) are only accessed in one place—in Christ (Eph. 1:3)! If you were to try to make a list of these blessings in Christ, which ones would be on your list? Which ones would you say are most valuable and most precious to you? Which one would you have on the top of your list?
Every spiritual blessing of God is valuable! There are none that are worthless! There are none that we can live without! But, consider one that we may sometimes take for granted. Consider one that we may sometimes think is so basic and elementary that it doesn’t require much thought from us. Consider forgiveness!
Can you imagine what it would have been like to hear the voice of Jesus Himself say directly and compassionately to you, “Your sins are forgiven” (like He did in Luke 5:20; 7:48; etc.)? How sweet those words must have been to proceed from His mouth to your ears and into your heart! While we do not hear with our ears those words today, the power is no less sweet in our hearts, as He forgives us of our sins today!
The word “forgiveness” comes from a word that literally means “send away.” So, when the Lord forgives us of our sins, He literally sends them away! He takes what was once separating me from my God (Isa. 59:1-2) and sends them away, so that I can abide in the holy presence of my God (1 John 3:5-6). He takes the blood that Jesus so freely and lovingly shed on the cross and washes my sins away (Rev. 1:5; 1 John 1:7), so that I can be clean from all of that filthy unrighteousness (Eph. 5:26; 1 John 1:9). He purges my sin so completely from me (Heb. 1:3) that He no longer remembers that I committed such an act against Him (Heb. 8:12; 10:17). He calls me to be faithful and knows that I will not be perfect (1 John 1:6-10), so He has devised a way for me to walk with Him, so that He can continually, continually, continually keep on, keep on, keep on forgiving me of my sin (1 John 1:7). Like David, I cannot help but exclaim that all of that knowledge is just “too wonderful for me” (Psa. 139:6).
So, the next time you pray and you “end” your prayer like you always end your prayer, with a quick, “Forgive me of my sins,” right before signing off, think about those words. God has blessed us with innumerable, immeasurable, unimaginable blessings, and His forgiveness of our sins (with all that entails) is second to none. When you ask God to forgive you of your sins, pause and think about Him saying, “Your sins are forgiven.” Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!