God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
- from 2 Corinthians 5:19

God doesn’t count your sins against you. What great news!

If he did, how would we ever make things right? We’ve cut the cord anchoring us to God and are adrift in the ocean of sin, without paddle or sail or motor. The currents would sweep us away.

In Christ, God pulls us back to the dock and tethers us fast to him. He doesn’t make us earn our way back or pay for our place. In his mercy and grace he welcomes us.

Were you to write out only the sins you can remember off the top of your head, you could fill a book. Ask your friends and family and you might fill another. But ask God – who knows everything – and his response isn’t to dictate you an anthology. No, it’s to tell you that your sins won’t be counted against you.

When God looks on you he sees Christ. If you have placed your trust in Jesus and submitted your life to him, God chooses to write off your sins. He wipes them away like a parent wipes away the tears of a child.

Some of us carry the memory of our sins around with us as if to punish ourselves. We tell ourselves that this is the life God wants for us, that this is our penance for our failure. But look at God’s example. How can we wallow in our sins if God refuses to count them against us? Why are we trying to pay a debt that’s been forgiven?

God’s forgiveness – offered to us in Christ – is extraordinary. We’ve been forgiven no greater debt. Nothing in our human experience has prepared us to receive what God has done for us. Yet we can and we must.

In Christ you are free from your sin. God will not hold it against you. The barriers between you and a healthy relationship with God have come down. You have no more reason to hide.

Celebrate this great gift today. Thank God that he chooses not to count your sins against you. Slow down long enough to let the joy of his forgiveness fill your heart.