Paid in Full

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.
—Colossians 2:13

You’ve probably heard the truth that Jesus Christ died for your sins. Perhaps some of you, as a child or a young adult, many years ago, made the decision to trust in Christ. You received the forgiveness of your sins. But since that time, you’ve strayed away from God. Maybe your straying from God was due to a sudden, dramatic event in your life, such as a divorce, an affair, a bankruptcy, or an addiction. Or maybe it’s been a slow eroding of your spiritual life. But there are things that happened after you became a Christian, and you’re wondering, What is God’s attitude toward me, a Christian who has wandered away from Him? How can I be forgiven?

Let’s look at the extent of God’s forgiveness of our sins. In Colossians 2:13, Paul said, “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.” Which of our sins has God forgiven? I want you to underline that three-letter word, all. He has forgiven us of all our transgressions.

You know what that word all refers to? It refers to the kind of sin God forgives. It’s just not the little sins, what we think of as inconsequential sins. He has forgiven us of all of our sins. If you have a hard time believing this, I encourage you to make a list of those sins that you have difficulty believing God could ever forgive you of. Then one by one, draw a line through them and write the word forgiven, because that’s what God says. He has forgiven you of all your transgressions.

Paul is not only referring to the type of sins but the timing of our sins. You know, in our minds, we see a timeline. We see the moment we trusted in Christ as our Savior and then we wonder, What about all of those sins after I’ve become a Christian? Since I’ve trusted in Christ, what happens to those sins? May I remind you that when Jesus Christ died for your sins two thousand years ago, all of your sins were still future at that moment? The past, the present, and the future—He has forgiven us of all of our sins. Isn’t that great news? When we accept Christ as our Savior, He forgives us of our sin. He takes our sin and cancels it out. He erases it.

Is there any possibility that our debt is ever going to reappear again? Not on your life. Micah the prophet says of God, “You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). And God says, “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). Your sins, Jesus says, have been forgiven, forgotten forever. That’s what He has done with your sin.

If you’re a Christian, no matter how far you’ve wondered away from God, He hasn’t moved. He’s right where He has always been. And most importantly, His attitude toward you hasn’t changed. He’s still waiting. He’s still working. He is still longing for you to return home. Will you come?

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “The Waiting Father” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2009.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.