August 02, 2025
Daily Devotion:
"Confession and Forgiveness"
Psalm 32:5-7
New Living Translation
5 Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.” And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Interlude 6 Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time, that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment. 7 For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.
When you forgive someone after he or she has offended you, do you then forget the offense? Or do you bring it up again and again, hoping to make that person feel sad or guilty?
Imagine if God were to store your offenses in the back of His mind, and then bring them up every time you asked Him for something. How would that make you feel? Fortunately, when God forgives, He casts our transgressions “as far as the east is from the west" (Psalm 103:12). Since the east and the west will never meet, that's about as far away as one could toss anything! Along with the sin itself goes 1) the punishment due, 2) the guilt it causes, and 3) the shame you feel gone. All of it. God never does anything halfway; therefore, when He forgives, He forgives completely. Because your forgiven sin is completely gone andforgotten, you have no reason and no right to dredge it up again. Therefore, rejoice in God's forgiveness, and make a clean start.
