The sins I remember

Because the sinless Saviour died

My sinful soul is counted free. Charitie Lee Bancroft

 

Read Hebrews 10:11—18

I cast my mind back over today. There is so much I could have done better. If the aim of this exercise, this life God has given me to live, if the aim is holiness, if I am to be perfect (aren’t I meant to be perfect?) then one day lived the way I live it is enough to fail me utterly.[1] Now I read that Christ made the offering once only to sanctify me. Clearly it hasn’t worked. And there’s no further offering. Where do I turn? I will not listen to my own condemning voice. I will listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit offers Christ to the poor sinner. He pleads all that Christ has done. The sins and lawless deeds that I remember, that I bewail, that disappoint me in myself and that sometimes crush me, God remembers no more. He remembers the deed of his Son for me. As I trust Christ I find this. Knowing this afresh, dwelling on it, thanking God for it in a heartfelt way, even with tears, I will welcome all he wants to do in my heart.

[1] Matthew 5:48

Prayer
Dear Father, I can see this night that you have not set out to condemn me. You have no pleasure in my being lost under my own failure and inadequacy. You have made me for atonement. For at-one-ment with you. I confess that I listen to the wrong voice. And I confess what I know was wrong in me today. I thank you for the voice of Jesus: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ I thank you for the urging of the Spirit within to claim and love the very things of God. I thank you for the circle of the covenant protection that surrounds me. Let me rejoice in freedom, the freedom of being delighted by what is in the very heart of God.