Learn Why God's Forgiveness Is Stronger Than Your Deepest Regrets

The only unforgivable sin is rejecting the forgiveness of God.

So embrace that forgiveness.

Here’s what God promises about that forgiveness. First, God promises to forget about your sin. This is what the Bible records God saying through the prophet Jeremiah: “I’ll wipe the slate clean for each of them. I’ll forget they ever sinned!” (Jeremiah 31:34, Msg).

That’s right. When you are forgiven, God gets a case of holy amnesia. You may have gone to God a thousand times to ask for forgiveness of a sin that He forgot about after the first time you asked Him to forgive you. Or maybe you’ve repeated a particular sin over and over, and you go to God and say, “God, I’m so sorry—I did it again.” And He’s asking, “Did what?”

When God forgives, He chooses to forget.

But that’s not all.

God doesn’t just forget; He promises to cleanse you from it. In His eyes, forgiveness completely purifies and cleanses you. Read these words from God through the prophet Isaiah:

"Though your sins are like scarlet,
I will make them as white as snow.
Though they are red like crimson,
I will make them as white as wool."
-Isaiah 1:18, NLT

But that’s not all. There’s more. God promises to remove your sin from your record. This is how the Bible puts it:

"He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west." - Psalm 103:12, NLT

Once you are forgiven by God, your sins are gone. They are cast away. They are never able to come back and haunt you, accuse you, nor condemn you. As Corrie ten Boom once said, when God forgives us, he takes our sins to the deepest part of the ocean, attaches a large weight, drops them overboard, and puts up a “No Fishing” sign.

So drink from the well of forgiveness and take that scarlet letter off your chest. This is what it means to have what Christ did on the cross applied to our lives.

God forgets our sin,

... cleanses us from our sin,

... and removes our sin from the record.

As the apostle John reminds us:

Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything. (I John 3:19-20, NLT)

Like I said, I don’t know who needed to hear this,

... I just know some of you did.

Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Julio Rionaldo 

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.