No Record - Martin Wiles

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness. Psalm 130:3-4 NLT

My stepfather brags that he has a record of the first one he ever wrote.

I’m not conscientious enough to have kept my first check. But I have and do keep records.

At school, we keep records too. A child can only have a limited number of unexcused absences. Someone has to record the absences. For minor misbehavior incidents, we issue lunch detention. After a certain number of them, we assign discipline slips. The middle school secretary keeps the record. If a student accumulates a certain number of discipline slips, they are suspended.

These records reflect the rules the school board has established. If we didn’t keep the records, it would be no reason to have the rules since one reflects the other. Without records, a student could miss as often as they wanted without penalty and could misbehave in any way they chose without consequence. As a teacher, I’m glad we have rules—and keep records.

The psalmist concerned himself with one record he didn’t want God to keep: the record of his sins. If God did, he was doomed.

God is holy and all-knowing. My sin is an affront to His holy nature and will keep me from Him now and for all of eternity if not dealt with. Fortunately, God took dealing with my sin upon Himself by letting Jesus die for the sins of humanity on Calvary’s cross.

Once I accept the forgiveness He offers, the record of my sins—and all my sins—is destroyed. The Bible says God forgets them—in the sense that He no longer holds them against me. Rather, He clothes me in the righteousness of Christ. I am no longer under condemnation.

After salvation, God keeps a record of our good works, as well as our motives behind doing them. These works will be judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ, but this has nothing to do with salvation. Christ secures that.

While I’m glad God destroys the record of my sins, I’m glad He keeps the record of my name as one of His children. This, He writes in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Once there, my name will never be erased.

God graciously destroys the record of anyone’s sins who asks. Let Him take the record of your sins and cast it as far as the east is from the west.

Prayer: Father, thank You for canceling the record of our sins and for recording our names in Your Book of Life.

Tweetable: Is your record clean?

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