When I Can't Believe I'm Forgiven

Devotional

You've already confessed it.

More than once, probably. You've named it, asked for mercy, and gotten the promise. And it still won't stay down. You're doing dishes and it shows up. You're driving and it shows up. And you find yourself running through it again, like if you feel bad about it enough times, one of those times will finally take.

You could explain forgiveness to somebody else. You've probably done it. But knowing you're forgiven and feeling forgiven are two different rooms, and today you can't find the door between them.

Here's what I think is actually going on. The question underneath your guilt isn't "will God forgive me." It's "is God really like that?" It's not a question about your sin. It's a question about his character.

Which is exactly where David starts.

"The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." Notice he says who God is before he says what God does. Mercy isn't a policy God adopted. It's what he's like. And "slow to anger" means his patience with you is not running out the way you're afraid it is.

Then: "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities." Stop there. If God dealt with you according to your sins, you'd have real reason to be afraid. He doesn't. There's an enormous gap between what you've earned and what you're getting, and the whole gap runs toward mercy.

Then David goes looking for a big enough picture. "As high as the heavens are above the earth." "As far as the east is from the west." He's reaching for distances you can't measure, and he can't find one big enough. That's the point. You keep walking back to where you left your guilt. God already carried it somewhere you can't follow.

And then verse 14, which is the one that gets me. "He knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust." God isn't shocked by your weakness. He built the frame. He knows what you're made of. That's not an excuse for sin. That's the reason for the compassion. A good father doesn't look at a stumbling toddler with disgust. He gets down on the floor.

Micah asks it out loud. "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity?" Nobody. And why does he? "Because he delights in steadfast love." He's not gritting his teeth. He's not forgiving you with a sigh. He enjoys it. Then: "He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea." Not floating where the tide brings them back. The bottom of the ocean. That's not God overlooking something. That's God doing something.

And we know where he did it. Every sin you keep rehearsing was laid on Jesus and judged there. Completely. Once. It's not a pending case.

So here's the hard word. Guilt that stays after God has spoken forgiveness has stopped being conviction. It's turned into unbelief with a religious accent. It says: I hear what God said, but I trust my feelings more. That's not humility. That's calling him a liar politely.

And notice what David does about his own feelings. He doesn't wait for them. He gives them an order. "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" He's talking to himself. Telling his own insides what to do. You can do that today, out loud, in the car.

The feeling may not lift this morning. It may come back tomorrow. But when it does, you've got something steadier than your feelings to stand on: "The steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting."

Before you sinned, it was there. After you sinned, it's there.

You may not feel forgiven. You are forgiven. Those aren't the same thing, and only one of them is true about you no matter what.