How Far Is The East From The West?
Tuesday January 28, 2014
How far is the east from the west? As someone recently answered, it’s infinity. It's a distance we can never travel and a destination we can never reach. In God's great kindness, based on our acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have been made whole. God has removed our sins from us and sent them to a place we can never reach. Our sins are beyond our reach because Jesus “Paid in Full” the penalty for sin and therefore we are born again to a completely new life.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. PSALM 103:8-12 NIV
When God separates us from our sins, they are gone. If they are gone to a place that is as far as the east is from the west, then our lives need no longer be impacted by them. So what is going on when we continue to remember our wrongs with guilt and shame, pain and condemnation? The simple answer is, the enemy of our soul is sitting on our shoulder telling us lies. The one who seeks only to destroy us is deceiving us into thinking those dark things are still sitting some place in our soul. He's lying because the sins are gone. God says so and God is no liar.
What are we to do when we experience this kind of trouble? We are to remember that, Jesus paid our sin debt on the cross and because of that, God has forgiven us. We are to tell our thoughts and emotions to remember that this is done and that we are free. We then get the joy of telling the enemy to take his lies and take off because God has set us free. We experience the satisfaction of God's freeing work in us when we simply stand in the truth.
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” JOHN 8:31-32 NIV
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