Forgotten Memories

In those days... the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for ... and they shall not be found (Jeremiah 50.20)
My daughter and son-in-law are visiting from the States. When they drop in it is always a time to travel down memory lane. Usually there is much laughter and great happiness as we think about how God has blessed our family through the years. Though we are presently  scattered over the wide world we have memories that take us back to a time when our family was nestled in a cozy little town in Michigan, attending a wonderful church together and basically enjoying each other.

Memories are sometimes prejudiced. They leave things out or they embellish. I seem to be stronger, smarter and better looking in my memories. However, the other day my memory completely failed me.

My daughter was recounting a surprise visit that I had arranged. In this memory Ann was living in another city. Thanksgiving was approaching and supposedly I wanted to surprise mom by paying for Ann and our grandson Gabe’s bus fare. All went according to plan and Dawn was completely astounded to the point of tears!

The problem is that as Ann stood there telling me this elaborate story I couldn’t remember any of it. She recounted detail after detail of things that I had said and done and all the while Dawn was nodding in agreement to each of the story’s details. As she went on and on I stood there with a blank stare on my face .

Ann finally said, “You have GOT to be kidding me! You don’t remember ANYTHING??” I shook my head while secretly wondering if Alzheimer's was setting in. I was drawing a complete blank.

This reminded me of Jeremiah 50.20 where God tells the prophet,

In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve.

I had never thought about this wonderful fact before. God can’t remember sin that has been pardoned. We know the verse that tells us that our sin has been removed from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103.12). Sure we also remember the verses that remind us that God has tossed our sin into the deepest sea where He forgets them (Micah 7.19; Hebrews 10.17) but we have trouble believing it don’t we? We know how WE forgive. We forgive and find it impossible to forget. Our forgiveness is always tainted by our memory which most of the time embellishes the infraction.

My experience the other day helped me to understand a little about how God forgives. When God perfectly forgives He also perfectly forgets. Does this mean that celestial Alzheimer’s is setting in? Not in the least. This means that God’s perfect Judgment for our infraction has been wholly satisfied in Jesus Christ. There are no twinges of doubt or expectation of betrayal. The memory has been formatted in a way as to completely remove it from the divine mind! The Apostle John put it this way, 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). Aren’t you glad?

So my friend, confess and turn from your sin. God wants to forgive and forget! He will perfectly pardon (see Isaiah 55.7).

What were we talking about?