My Sins Will Be Wiped Out | Ashamed, Part 2

Why, hello there. Welcome to "Ashamed, Part 2"...otherwise known (by me, at least) as "My Sins Will Be Wiped Out." If you want to get the full point of this post and you haven't read Part 1 yet, I would advise that you do so. Aaaaaaand, I would give you the link, except for that I would hate to sow laziness in you. So you can just scroll down there and look at it yourself. ;) [Hehe...]

"Repent, therefore, and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."
-Acts 3:19

I love the part, "in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." But that's for Ashamed, Part 3. :) Today I'll be focusing on the "that your sins may be wiped away" section of the verse.

First of all, I think that in order to appreciate the fact that Jesus can -- and does -- wipe our sins completely away, we should understand a little more about the hugeness of sin.

Sin is huge in at least three ways that I can think of.

1). Sin separates us from God, which is why Jesus Christ came to save us. He died for my sins and He died for yours. And then He rose again, conquering death, so that we could one day enter the presence of God and be with Him forever. God hates sin. He hates it. We have a God who loves us, yes, but we also have a God who is just and therefore hates our sin. He is holy, we are not. Because He loves us so much, He was willing to send His only Son to be the sacrifice in our place. I can guarantee you that I would NEVER send a child of mine to die in your place...no matter who you are. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is. I might die in place of a child, but I wouldn't send him to be the sacrifice in your place. But that's just what God did. He sent His Son, whom He loved, to die for us. Now we can be sanctified and made pure and clean.

2). Anger is murder. According to Matthew 5, if we are angry with a brother, that is the same as if we committed murder. If we look at another person with lust, it is as if we have committed adultery with that person in our hearts. So even if a sin seems "little," know, my friends, that it is NOT little at all in God's eyes! I've always hated the term "white lie," because I've always been taught that lying is lying, no matter how big or small. If anger is the same as murder, I cringe to think of what a "white lie" would be.

3). Sin is huge in number. Think of all the sins we commit each and every day. I get angry multiple times a day, and it's not the righteous kind of anger either. It's the kind that makes me glower at people, the kind that causes me to snap at my brothers and sisters. And my anger is over stupid things like not having enough time to read my precious book or having to help with supper when I'm in the middle of something I deem more "important." And anger isn't my only problem. Sometimes I cringe when I remember that God can see in my heart ALL THE TIME, not just when I want Him to. He can see all of the nasty attitudes, the mean thoughts, the condescending words that I'm just itching to say out loud...the ones that -- even though they never make it through my lips -- are meant very sincerely, just as they are when I yell them at the top of my lungs.

For an experiment, let's just say that I average about 20 sins a day (which is actually, unfortunately, quite a lot less than in reality...but 20 is an easy number to multiply). Now, there are 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year, right? That would come to 7,280 sins in a year. When you think of how long it takes to count to one thousand, and then think again about how long it would be to count seven times that far, 7,000 suddenly seems like a bigger number than it used to.

Now, let's take this a step further and multiply 7,280 sins by 17 years (because I'll be 17 in a little over a week). From 1997 to 2014, I would have sinned 123,760 times. Try to count to 100,000, will you? :) But let's not stop here. In the year 2014, there are an estimated 7 billion people on the earth. Now, if each of those people sinned 20 times a day for a year...the number would equal 50,960,000,000,000. (Or so my Google calculator tells me.)

Now, in case you didn't know, this number is fifty trillion, nine hundred and sixty billion.

Try counting that far. Actually, don't. Because some estimates say that it would take 542,241 years. Imagine, once you get up to the billions, counting like this: ninety-six billion, five hundred and thirty-seven million, eight hundred and nine thousand, three hundred and eighty-two...ninety-six billion, five hundred and thirty-seven million, eight hundred and nine thousand, three hundred and eight-three...ninety-six billion, five hundred and thirty-seven million, eight hundred and nine thousand, three hundred and eighty-four...

Yeah. Don't think so.

By the way, just to give you another idea of how BIG a trillion is, one trillion is equal to one thousand billions and to one million millions.

And in case you haven't comprehended it yet, here's some more info:
-One trillion seconds of normal clock time = 31,546 years. (Which means, if you were counting backwards, you would have landed yourself in 30,000 B.C.)
-If you stack a trillion-worth of $1,000 bills together (note that this is 1 trillion-worth of $1,000, not $1...because if you had 1 trillion-worth of $1, it would be a bigger number than there would be with $1,000), the stack would be 63 miles high. And also note that these bills are stacked, not laid end-to-end.
-If a person's salary is $40,000 per year, it would take 25 millions years to earn $1 trillion.
{Sources: grc.nasa.gov, ihtd.org}

And we're talking over fifty trillion sins here.

But then, what about all the people who have been alive ever since Adam's day. What about Methuselah, who lived 969 years? What about Jared (from Genesis 5:20) who lived nine hundred and sixty-two years? And what about the people who will be alive in the years to come?

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
{Isaiah 53:5} 

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
{2 Corinthians 5:21}

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:
"Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness -- by whose stripes you were healed.
{1 Peter 2:21-24}

Christ died for our sins, and not only for our sins, but for the sins of the whole world. Those of us who have placed our trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior have had our sins wiped completely away. He died for us. He died for the sins of those who would one day come to believe in Him. Trillions of sins, all laid upon Him. No wonder He cried out at the cross, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" ("My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?")

Sin is huge. But God is even bigger. He is fully capable of casting our sin from us as far as the east is from the west. And He does, too.

Psalms 103:8-13, 17-18 says this: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, Nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. ... But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them."

Then, from verses 20-22 of that same chapter, David says four times, "Bless the Lord!"

Bless the Lord, you His angels... Bless the Lord, all you His hosts... Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominion... Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Yes! Bless the Lord, O my soul! None of us deserve the grace and mercy He has bestowed on us. But do we remember to bless the Lord for this gift? I don't know about you, but I sure forget to. I should be praising Him with every breath I have in me, thanking Him for His loving kindness.

John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Have you ever read the story about King David committing adultery with Bathsheba? It's found in 2 Samuel 11. David did a terrible thing, committing adultery, and then murdering the husband of the woman to cover up his sin. In Psalms 51, David is pouring out his sin before God, begging for forgiveness and asking God to restore to him the joy of salvation. God forgave him, and removed David's sin from him as far as the east is from the west.

(While I was writing the above paragraph, I suddenly realized that the very sins David committed -- the ones we think are so, so terrible: murder and adultery -- we commit every day. If anger is murder and lust is adultery, we are just as bad as David. And yet God forgives us when we ask Him!)

I was once in a situation where I was having a hard time "feeling forgiven" for something mean I had done. I had been extremely rude -- actually, "extremely rude" doesn't even sum it up -- to one of my brother's friends...and not just once, either. It was over and over, time after time. And it was completely stupid. There was not even a justified cause for why I was being so mean. I look back and wonder how on earth I could have said the ugly things I said. I hated bullies then, and somehow, in my own way, I had become one! There were times when I despised myself. I still get tears in my eyes when I think of those times.

I asked God for forgiveness over and over, and yet I still didn't feel justified. I was terribly sorry, but still, even my sorrow didn't take the pain and guilt away.

Then our pastor spoke about our sin and God's forgiveness. He gave an example that if we go to God and say, for the second, third, fourth, fifth, or two-hundredth time (about the same sin), "Lord, please forgive my sin," God would say, "What sin? What sin? There IS no sin anymore! I have removed it from you! It is gone! The sin you are asking forgiveness for is no more!"

That really hit me. All of a sudden I realized that my sin was already removed from me as far as the east is from the west. That is a loooooooooong ways away. I no longer needed to worry about it. God had taken care of it. In a way, my worrying was like telling him, "Lord, I don't think you're capable of taking my sin away. I feel that I need to do something myself, because the sacrifice of Your Son wasn't enough." I wasn't literally saying that, but that's really how it sums up.

Pretty much, forgiveness all boils down to this: Do you believe that God has the power to take away your sins? Do you believe in Christ's death on the cross and His resurrection?

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

Christ has the power to cleanse our sins!!! The problem is that we often forget to recognize it. At church we remember, and during devotions we remember. But during the times that it most matters, I often forget that the death that Christ died, He died to sin once for all. Those of us who have put our faith in Him have been cleansed! If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgives us our sins! What wonderful news!!! And yes, I realize that this probably isn't "new" news to you.

But always remember not to forget.

"Repent, therefore, and return, that your sins may be wiped away..."

How refreshing that is! "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." {2 Corinthians 5:17} Yes! All things have become new. Are sins are wiped away, and we are clean, washed as white as pure snow.

"Repent, therefore, and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."

Times of refreshing came for me, after I realized that God had already taken away my sin and cleansed me. Times of refreshment are much needed in our society. (Actually, they are much needed in any kind of society.) Especially the kind of refreshment that comes from the presence of the Lord.

But more on that later. ;) I still have another looooooong post to write on the subject.

Therefore I will say goodbye and go away so you can finish this and hopefully come back later for more.

Survivor of Boko Haram Attack

I'm still planning to get my "Ashamed, Part Two" post up...but before I do, I thought I'd show this video. Have any of you heard of "Boko Haram"? Well, if you haven't, now's the time to get updated on it. My Sunday School teacher has been sending me and my classmates some videos via email about various things going on around the world. I personally think that it is a good thing to be updated on nationwide news, and I'm glad my teacher thinks so too. One of the videos she sent is this one, about a Boko Haram attack: (Click here)

In case you didn't click on the link because you thought you might as well not waste your time, let me tell you that it isn't a waste. It's almost 20 minutes long, but it's well worth it. At 7 minutes and 18 seconds into the video, the Nigerian man shares a passage of Scripture: John 16:1-4. I admit it, it made me cry.

Four men came to the Nigerian man's house and asked him to deny his faith in Christ. The man refused, and so the Boko Haram men called his wife out of the house and told her to plead with her husband to forsake Jesus Christ. But the man would not denounce his Savior. So they shot him in the head. He ended up living, and when he quoted John 16:1-4, to explain to the interviewer how he had the courage to stand against the Boko Haram men, I was amazed.

These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the times is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God a service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

 Wow. And "these things I have spoken to you" are the words spoken in John 15:

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of this world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'

"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me."

Yes, the world hates that man for standing up for his faith. And yet, Jesus has given him the strength to stand firm, despite the odds. He lived through a terrible gunshot that blew out part of his face, and yet he tells that interviewer that Christ has commanded him to love his enemies. And this man is not only loving his enemies on the outside (which would be hard enough), he is loving them on the inside too...he is praying for the members of the Boko Haram. Incredible!

Now go watch the video.