Why would I want God’s forgiveness?
Some might say that it is your responsibility to seek forgiveness from the all-powerful creator if you have offended him, in the same way as you would apologise and ask your parents for forgiveness if you offended them. However, there are benefits to God’s forgiveness, both short and long term. Firstly, in the short term, even if the people or person you have offended cannot or will not forgive, God will forgive you! Providing of course you are sincere in your remorse and request for forgiveness; this provides peace of mind, a clean slate to start from. The writer of Psalm 32 (a king of Israel) sets out the relief that he feels now he has confessed his sins to God and he had done some pretty terrible things as we’ll see later on:
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”
Psalm 32:1-5
Anyone who has suffered with extreme guilt will recognise these feelings, and King David felt them too, we can almost feel the weight being lifted from his shoulders as we read this passage.
Another short to medium term benefit is that God offers you a clean slate to start again from no matter what you have done, the Bible give some graphic illustrations of this:
“He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
Micah 7:19
And if this isn’t illustrative enough,
“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.”
Psalm 103:11-13
So, “as far as the east is from the west”. Stop and think how far the east is from the west, in terms of space you can go east as far as you want but you will never reach a point where you can’t go east any further and the same applies to west. This is how far God puts our sins from us when we ask for forgiveness. As well as these short-term benefits there is also the long-term benefit of a place in his kingdom when the Lord Jesus Christ returns; a time when peace will reign on earth.
If you want to know more about this time, more about the kingdom of God please feel free to contact us.