Former Blackout Artist

“I, yes I alone, will blot our your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.“ ~ Isaiah 43:25 NLT

I reached for my wallet to pay for dinner. “Put that away,” he said. “You paid the last time. Today it’s on me.”

For many, paying for someone’s dinner may seem little more than a friendly courtesy. But once this becomes habit, with the one person always paying the tab for the other, it can easily become expected. And after a while, potential resentment can occur if the gesture isn’t reciprocal in nature. Why does he always let me pay? Why does he never object and offer to pay the tab?

We humans have a real knack for keeping score. Perhaps it originates from the competitive natures we developed in school during recess on the playground. Or maybe it is simply because we can often be inherently selfish human beings. It’s almost as if we were born with an internal scorecard. How many times growing up were we called out and disciplined for fighting with our siblings? And mom, God bless her, she would never catch the first punch thrown; it was always the retaliation she saw. He hit me first! I was just paying him back! Why are you punishing me? I didn’t start it!

There is good news today for those of us who love Christ and have a relationship with him. And that Good News is this: God clears our account of wrongdoing. It is not for our sake that He does this, but for His sake. We don’t deserve it, but He continues paying our tab.

He does this not so that we can go on intentionally living in sin, but that we may live our lives free of the burden of sin. Without even recognizing it sometimes, we do sinful things. It is impossible for us to remain sinless, although we try our best. But we don’t have to continue keeping score. The moment that Jesus gave his life for us on the cross, our scorecards were shredded, forever. That’s how much God loved us, as Christ reminds us in John 3:16. And sometimes it helps to personalize this passage of Scripture. God loves me so much. How much? So much that He sacrificed His One and only Son for me, so that I may live and have eternal life. All that is required of me is to ask for forgiveness of my sin and believe in Him.

We can’t be made right with God without Christ.

Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved” (NLT).

Love doesn’t keep score, it keeps no records of wrongs. Just as God erases our debts forever, we are to forgive others.

See: Christ forgives me.

Act: Make a list of those you need to forgive, and a list of those you need to ask to forgive you.

Follow Through: Ask for forgiveness from those you have wronged, and forgive those who have wronged you.