What is the limit of God’s forgiveness?
I’ve often found myself asking the Lord, “Can you really forgive me after what I did?”
The answer has always been a love-filled “yes”! 1 John 1:9 tells us,
“But if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. We can trust God to do this. He always does what is right. He will make us clean from all of the wrong things we’ve done.”
It sometimes seems hard to believe that He can and will forgive us for everything we’ve ever done wrong. If we look throughout scriptures we see time after time that God chooses to forgive us. Mistake after mistake and His response is always loving forgiveness.
In Isaiah 43:25 God says,
“I – yes, I alone, He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
Here we see that God’s character is to forgive us, it’s what God wants to do. I once read “He will forgive us willingly and with delight; it is His pleasure; it is His honour.” It pleases God to forgive you- that’s how much He loves you!
As I read through the Bible I find many examples of God’s forgiveness in action, but one of the most powerful examples I have found is in Luke 23 where Jesus Christ has been arrested, beaten, humiliated, and hung upon the cross to die. What did Jesus say in response to all of this horrible treatment? He said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” He could have said, ‘Forgive most of the people, but not the ones that beat me.’ But it is His character and His nature to forgive everything and everyone.
If you ever think that you’ve done something unforgivable, just remember David’s story in 2 Samuel 11-13. David killed a man just so he could marry that man’s wife! God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David,
“Then David confessed to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Nathan replied, ‘Yes, but the Lord has forgiven you”
I want to encourage you to take a moment to think about God’s forgiving nature, to really meditate on the truth of His desire to forgive. There is nothing you can do, nothing you can say, that God wouldn’t forgive you for!
In Isaiah 44:22 God says
“Your sins were like a big cloud. But I wiped them all away. Your sins are gone, like a cloud that disappeared into thin air, I rescued and protected you, so come back to me.”
God doesn’t want to punish you for your mistakes, He forgives you and He wants you to come running back to Him, and jump in His outstretched arms. Always remember: There is no limit to God’s forgiveness.