Press the "erase" button

I wonder if we listened to ourselves and watched ourselves as though we were on TV … what would we think of ourselves?  There are characters in television shows that are the antagonistic ones … you watch them and just can’t help disliking them or being put off by their behaviors.  Similarly, there are others who you just can’t help but love … admiring their actions and decisions.

If we were watching ourselves, which would we be?  I can certainly look at various points in my life, including during the past 15 years since accepting Christ as my Savior, when I no doubt would have been a bit repulsed by my attitude or conduct.  I guess in fairness the opposite’s probably true.  But the times to me that stand out most vividly, almost playing like a video in my mind that can’t be erased, are the moments about which I’m not proud … almost (and in some cases actually) ashamed.  Perhaps we all have those.

While stumbling through my weekly reading in Leviticus 7 – 13, Psalms 97 – 103, and 2 Samuel 17 – 23, a series of passages of encouragement were offered up, thank God.  In particular, Psalm 103 provides a tremendous reminder of the hopefulness we have in our Lord, which to me acts as a bit of an “erase” button to some of those videos of shame that can playback in our minds all too often.

Verses 8 – 13 of Psalms 103 says …

The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.  He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever.  He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.  For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.  He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.  The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.

One of my favorite lines in the entire Bible is in verse 12 … “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.”  How far is the east from the west?  Infinitely far, right?  There’s no words to describe how far away it is.  THAT is how far our Lord has moved our sins away from us … out of His tender love and compassion for us.

In my career I have been blessed to lead several information technology functions … the departments that are responsible for managing our servers, computers, internet connections, etc.  A key fact I learned over the course of time is that when we delete data from our computers or wherever, the data are never really deleted.  Somehow, on the hard drive, once data are written to the hard drive, those data technically remain there forever.  While we might think we can erase something … and we may try … there is almost always a way to retrieve it.  We see this come to light in criminal cases and lawsuits all the time.  Someone thinks they’ve done away with the evidence, but some expert has the ability to recover it.  Once there, always there for the most part.

In the same way, I think something that plagues many of us is the movie we play over in our minds about the things we’ve done in the past … ugly things … shameful things … hurtful things.   Yeah, I know we’re not all a bunch of degenerates, but there’s no denying that ALL of us have done things we’re not proud of at some point.  One of the biggest objections I hear from people I meet from time to time when I share about Jesus with them is that “God could NEVER forgive me for the things I’ve done.”  There were times in my life before coming to know the Lord when I felt the same thing.

But what God wants us to know is NO MATTER WHAT WE’VE DONE IN OUR LIFE, He and He alone has the one key way to press the “erase” or “delete” button.  It’s through Jesus … when He died on the cross and rose again after the third day and said “it is finished,” He was confirming the “delete” command from His Father.

It doesn’t stop us from seeing the video in our minds that our memories might play over and over and over … that the enemy, Satan, wants to keep pushing the “repeat” button for … but more importantly when God our Father looks at the video, the movie of our sins is deleted, NEVER to be seen by Him again.

Why does He do this?  It’s answered in verse 13 … “The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him.”

Bottom line … if we ask Jesus to forgive our sins and accept Him as our Lord and Savior … there is nothing we can do that the Lord won’t forgive, no matter how bad we have been, how ashamed we are, or how much it reverberates in our minds from time to time.

Of course, in the same way as data on a hard drive … this means once the data are erased we don’t rewrite the data to the hard drive.  Otherwise, the data will be there again.  Our hearts need to change and we need to stop chasing sin in the way we used to.

Let’s ask our Lord this week to continually remind us that we are forgiven.  That no matter what we’ve done, He willingly sent His son to the cross (which of course we commemorate this Friday) to pay the price … to hit “delete” against the data of our past sin.  Our sins are removed from us as far as the east is from the west.  Unfathomable.  But true.

Jesus is risen!  He is risen indeed!  THAT was the "erase" button ... and it worked!

MR