Apply for a job, any job, and one of our first questions will be, “Have you ever committed a crime?”
Ouch, we think. Is that all it takes to defeat our attempts to improve ourselves? We’ve paid our dues to society. We’ve resolved matters to the satisfaction of the law. No one holds us under a shadow any longer.
Except, our past haunts us, and it seems we can never get away. We want to sweep it under a rug and get on with living.
James 5:19-20 says we can do exactly that.
“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”
Wow! That’s exactly what we want. When we change our ways, our accounts with God are evened out, and we no longer have to answer the question: “Have you ever committed a crime?”
The world might not be so generous, but God is. Once we come unto him, dedicate our lives to his will, and forego further forays into the muddy waters of wrongdoing, God tosses a great blanket over our sins, hiding them from his sight; and we can forget they ever had a place in our lives. God even forgets where the blanket is. He never questions us on what happened “back then,” as if we were pure from the get-go.
Man has yet to learn the grace of God, and perhaps for good reason. The worldly man may indeed return to his wicked ways. However, the Christian is made new in Christ, and the old man is left behind. The sins stay with the old, and purity envelops the new. When a new Christian comes into our holy congregation, let’s not ask, “Have you ever committed a crime?” Instead, let’s pat them on the back and say in the most rousing way possible, “Welcome home, good and faithful servant of the Lord God Most High.”
He whom God has forgiven is forgiven, indeed.
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