Raleigh Avenue Baptist, Homewood
All of us have things in our past that we regret. There are things we would love to do over again. Do you know you can leave the past behind?
God promises in Jeremiah 31:34, “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.”
How can your past be forgiven and forgotten by God?
First, you must acknowledge that you’ve sinned. Our culture teaches us to justify our sin by saying, “Everybody else is doing it” or “Compared to other people, what I’m doing isn’t that bad.”
If you want to be saved, however, then you have to accept responsibility for your sin and confess it before God.
Then you must receive God’s grace. Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve.
Jesus Christ did not die on the cross for you because of your goodness but in spite of your badness. Salvation is not spelled “D-O.” You are not saved by doing good deeds. Salvation is spelled “D-O-N-E.”
By dying on the cross for your sins, Jesus has already done for you everything necessary to be saved.
Author Ernest Hemingway told the story of a father and his rebellious teenage son who lived in Spain.
The son ran away from home. In desperation, the father put an ad in the Madrid newspaper. His son’s name was Paco, a very common name in Spain.
The ad simply read, “Dear Paco, meet me in front of the Madrid newspaper office tomorrow at noon. All is forgiven. I love you, Papa.”
The next day at noon in front of that newspaper office, there were 800 young men named Paco seeking forgiveness.
Today you may be a “Paco” who is desperately seeking to get out from under a heavy load of guilt.
No matter what you’ve done, if you will meet your heavenly Father at the foot of the cross of Christ, then you will receive God’s forgiveness.
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