No Take Backs

There are things in life we wish we could take back. Those who say they have no regrets are either uncommonly blessed or very forgetful. Everyone has at least one moment in their life that haunts them, perhaps many more. Perhaps yours hasn’t come yet; I’m sorry to say, it will.

It makes no difference if it was a lifetime ago, it plagues you. It plagues you, like a string tied to the spot where the stomach and small intestine meet and runs up all the way to your heart, often tugged at ever so slightly, sometimes jerked suddenly, allowing all the pent up fear and disgust to flood out of that scar leaving us wandering and empty for a while.

Whatever it is in our lives that we have done, it is part of the curse of time that we are not allowed to turn back the clocks and re-live our lives. There are no take backs. Augustine once said of our trespasses, ‘they are our sin and our punishment.’ You may have betrayed a friend or estranged a family member now with no chance of reconciliation. Maybe you’ve murdered or had an abortion and feel the inconsolable grief that hole leaves. Often we feel like criminals but don’t know who it is we have rebelled against.
People often want justice when it concerns our own lives. However, if we are at all truly self-aware of our interaction with others, there rises a suffocating fear of that just retribution due those we have hurt – including breaking any Law of Righteousness Itself, God. And that may gouge a scar so deep it affects our whole existence.

Now, hear my good news. This is the very thing from which Christ has come to free you. There may be no take backs, but there is a making new from the old.
The strange thing is that many Christians feel these pangs of fear worse than others. The reason, I believe, is because we are most aware of the mercy we need in comparison to the Holiness we have met in Christ. We should know, beyond a doubt, that Christ has released us from those debts we owe. Yet we worry often about one thing that was the worst of our offenses - it is Satan that drags that horror out of you. He wants you to fear, doubt and worry. However Christ has promised – and this is the part that faith in Him plays – we are to trust that He can and will do whatever He says He can and will do.
And He can and will.

The Christ of God has taken your sins and removed them, every one, past and present, even future sins, as far as the East is from the West. God knew your sins before the world began. He is beyond Time and Space, they are things of His making. Do not let fear creep up on you and torture you, it is merely a distraction to take your eye off the Goal, Christ – and as Peter so quickly found out, what happens when we take our eyes off our Lord? We sink. It is my good pleasure to tell you that if you trust in Christ and turn away from that life previously lived, no matter the sin, it is forgiven. You are promised. Your slate is wiped perfectly clean.

Why then do we worry and fear over that one terrible sin in our past – or yet to come? Do you think that one sin more terrible than another? Murder worse than faithlessness? There is only sin and perfection, jet black and shining white, and we are none of us shining. As the Word says, if you are guilty of one mark against the Law, you are guilty of all of it. A half truth isn’t all of it. Isn’t a fib a lie? Christ tells us that if we hate in our hearts, it is just as wrong as murder itself. There may be degrees of sin or circumstances, I am not one to quibble because I don’t know; I will leave that to the Judge. It is His job, not mine. All my acts of rebellion, big or small are still rebellions. Some have been subconscious, others willfully disobedient. “Yet while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” I deserve death for the least of my sins, not just that one horrible one.
Thankfully, Christ has paid that price for me should I follow Him.

And I choose to follow Him.