YES. REALLY.
We can easily grasp the “concept” that Jesus’ sacrificial death brings atonement for our sin. Intellectually, we understand the statement, but in the living reality of its application it can sometimes give us pause. It’s usually easier for us to accept and fully believe the forgiveness of past sins–before we were saved–because that makes sense. We are a new creature now. Even so, the devil loves to throw the past in our face to create doubt and to humiliate us. At those times, we just need to give him a swift kick right out of our presence!
What can really niggle in the back of our minds are our current offenses. We think, “Shouldn’t I be doing better? Why do I always mess up when I’m trying so hard to be good and to follow Jesus?” There is a legitimate reason for this. Even the Apostle Paul wrestled with this very issue: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Romans 7:15) We cannot step out of the skin of our sin nature in this life. We can only persevere in doing good, repent when we do not, and give glory to God, through Jesus Christ, that He has taken upon himself the full penalty of our sin. Jesus died once and for all believers for the forgiveness of all of our sins–past, present and future. Think about it, at the time of His crucifixion, all of our sins were future sins. The last earthly words Jesus spoke were these, “It is finished“. And it was finished, long before we ever began…
Take heart and fly, straight into those open and forgiving arms that are ready to receive us every day and in every circumstance of life. He is Life.
*Author note: This writing was merely moved from the Just a Minute devotions tab, over to the blog portion of the site. Felt it was a little long for that category.. Apologies for any redundancy had you read this before.