East to West

As you probably already know, I live on Canada’s east coast. The most easterly point in Canada (and North America, actually) is Cape Spear, here in Newfoundland. The most westerly point in Canada is the Yukon/Alaska border, which is 5,514 km (3,426 miles) away from Cape Spear. That’s far away! That distance is what I picture when I read Psalm 103-10-12:

“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.”

When we believe in Jesus, God doesn’t just cover up our sins, hoping no one will notice them under a veneer of goodness. Instead, ‘He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.’ Those sins are completely gone – far, far away from us.

There will often still be consequences of those sins that we have to deal with, whatever they might be, but there is nothing on our permanent record with God, so to speak.

I see that as meaning two things for us. First, it means God isn’t keeping a record of past sins, just waiting to punish us for them sometime in the future. They’re gone, never to be brought up again. No matter how bad the sins were, God removes them completely and throws them far away. Because of Jesus, we can trust that we are free from the fear of divine judgement.

Second, if those sins have been so far removed from us, we shouldn’t be beating ourselves up about them, either. We have a bad habit of clinging to the shame and guilt of our past sins, even though God has taken those sins away. If we have trusted in Jesus, then we can let go of shame over our sins. They’re gone - as far away as the east is from the west!