God Forgot

"Love is patient. Love is kind." You don't even have to be a biblical scholar to be familiar with the description in 1 Corinthians 13, of all the things love is. Chances are, if you've attended a wedding, pretty much ever, you've heard these words. "It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. (vs.4)" But did you know love is also forgetful?

True story. Listen to verse 5: "It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."

If there's a better description of forgiveness, I don't know what it is. It's not a mere matter of accepting an apology. Love eliminates the wrongdoing from the dynamic of the relationship.  

Now, we know from 1 John 4:8 that God, Himself, is Love. It's not just that he loves us, it's that Love is who He is. It's his very essence and nature. This means that, when we read 1 Corinthians 13 -- the Love Chapter -- what we're really getting is a crash course in the personhood of our Heavenly Father. God is patient and kind. And God keeps no record of wrongs. 

This means that, once we recognize the sin in our lives, recognize God for who He is, accept our blame for what we've done and the Grace of Christ who died as a final sacrifice, we are reconciled with God, and our past is gone. In our humanity, to be sure, we still deal with the consequences of what we've done... but as far as our relationship with God is concerned, our past sin is simply no longer a part of the equation. 

Now here's a mystery: we know from Scripture that God is omniscient -- that is, all-knowing. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 10 and Luke 12 that even the hairs on our heads are numbered. Yet, He does not remember our sin. How is this possible? How is it possible that a God who knows everything has separated us from our misdeeds "as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103:12)," and remembers them no more (Isaiah 43:25)? 

Put simply: Because, by the blood of Jesus Christ, and the grace of the Almighty, those sins no longer exist.