“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save…But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God…” (Isaiah 59:1-2)
God is the essence of holiness – He cannot approve of sin nor allow it into His presence. When we were dead in our sin, before salvation, we were by necessity separated from God. That’s why He chose to die in our place – so that we could be washed clean and made pure. And when we become saved, He makes us able to stand in His presence blameless with great joy (Jude 1:24-25).
But, there are going to be times when we fall short and do wrong, in spite of our saved state. Which is why repentance is so important. When we allow ourselves to live in sin, we begin to build up a wall between ourselves and God – not a permanent, eternal wall (that has been taken care of once and for all) – but a manmade structure. We disallow ourselves from walking in right relationship with Him because we know that we are doing what He hates. But the amazing thing is that in spite of our shortcomings God is still willing to hear our prayers of repentance, and to renew us and strengthen us by His power.
I know that I often struggle with accepting forgiveness from God; I can feel like my sin is just too big. And I think I am not alone in this. But when we hold back because we just can’t believe that God would forgive that sin, we are inadvertently minimizing who He is. Do we really think that He who went so far as to suffer and die for us will be inhibited by whatever mess is in our lives right now? Let’s not equate Him to sinful humans who are fickle in their forgiveness. He is an unchanging God, and He stands by what He says. So when He tells us that He will forgive us if only we repent, He means it! And once He’s forgiven our sin, He remembers it no longer (Hebrews 10:17). He doesn’t hold it over our heads, but casts it away as if it never happened. Let’s rejoice in that and bring our repentance to Him with gladness.
While our sin is often too great for us, it can never be too great for God. Even when we don’t know how to pray, when we are overwhelmed with our failures, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us (Romans 8:26). God has made Himself so accessible – we have no work to do except give ourselves to Him. Because of His great love for us, we have access to deep forgiveness and freedom. Repentance is a privilege, and we should welcome it as such.
Related Scripture
1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Romans 8:1
“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Psalm 32:1-5
“How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’, and You forgave the guilt of my sin.”
Jude 1:24-25
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
Romans 8:26
“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
Hebrews 10:17
“for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more”
Romans 4:7-8
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account”
Isaiah 30:18
“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.”
1 John 2:1-2
“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you do not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Psalm 103:8, 12
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy…As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our wrongdoings from us.”
2 Corinthians 7:10
“For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”
The Girl that Jesus Loved 