Experience The Relief Of Forgiveness
Do you ever find it difficult to forgive other people or even to forgive yourself for something you have done? The key to forgiving others and yourself is, knowing how much God has forgiven you. Forgiven people forgive.
As C.S. Lewis wrote; ‘To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.’
Through Jesus, God has made total forgiveness available to you and me. In this psalm, we see the huge difference that God’s forgiveness makes.
Release from the hand of judgment
David describes the spiritual agony of not being forgiven:
Psalms 32:3-4 CEV Before I confessed my sins, my bones felt limp, and I groaned all day long. Night and day your hand weighed heavily on me, and my strength was gone as in the summer heat.
Transparency with God
The road to forgiveness is simply to come to the Lord with no pretense:
Psalms 32:5 CEV So I confessed my sins and told them all to you. I said, “I'll tell the Lord each one of my sins.” Then you forgave me and took away my guilt.
David describes the enormous blessing of knowing you are forgiven:
Psalms 32:1-2 CEV Our Lord , you bless everyone whose sins you forgive and wipe away. You bless them by saying, “You told me your sins, without trying to hide them, and now I forgive you.”
The first two verses of this psalm give us three pictures of what God does with your sins. First, ‘the Lord does not count’ your sins against you. He acts as though they do not exist.
Second, they are ‘covered’. It is as if God gets out his heavenly eraser and rubs out the sinful entries in your records. Third, they are ‘forgiven’. In other words our sins are ‘removed’ or ‘taken away’. The pages relating to your sins are ripped out and destroyed.
The apostle Paul quotes this psalm as evidence that through the death of Jesus for you, God credits you with righteousness by faith and that forgiveness is not something that you can earn by good works.
Romans 4:6-8 CEV In the Scriptures David talks about the blessings that come to people who are acceptable to God, even though they don't do anything to deserve these blessings. David says, “What a blessing when God forgives our sins and our evil deeds. What a blessing when the Lord erases our sins from his book.”
Through the cross, God restores you to a right relationship with him, you can pray to him, He becomes your ‘hiding-place’, He protects you from trouble, He guides you,and his ‘unfailing love surrounds’ you.
This is not earned by good works. It comes to the person who trusts in him by faith.
You were saved by faith in God, who treats us much better than we deserve. This is God's gift to you, and not anything you have done on your own. It isn't something you have earned, so there is nothing you can brag about.
Ephesians 2:8-9 CEV
Forgiveness is not a reason to sin – it is an incentive not to sin. We want to stay on God’s paths. He promises that he will guide you:
Proverbs 3:5-6 CEV With all your heart you must trust the Lord and not your own judgment. Always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow.
He does not want you to be difficult to guide like a horse or a mule that must be controlled by bit and bridle. He wants you to avoid the pain of resisting the Holy Spirit. Follow the promptings of God’s Spirit. He wants you to hear his voice daily, listen to his instruction, walk in his ways and trust in his love.
Lord, thank you that you died for me on the cross so that I can know the relief of forgiveness. I am sorry for the things I have done wrong in my life… Please forgive me.