Sins Remembered No More

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading, titled, Sins Remembered No More, was written by Adam R. Huls. I never saw the ice, but I felt it. The back end of the pickup I was driving, my grandfather's, fishtailed. One swerve, two, three, and I was airborne, flying off a 15-foot embankment.

I remember thinking, this would be awesome if I wasn't going to die. A moment later, the truck crunched into the steep slope and rolled to the bottom. I crawled out of the crushed cab, unscathed.

The truck was utterly totaled that December morning in 1992. God had spared me, but what about my grandfather? What would he say? In fact, he never said a single word about the truck.

Not one. There was no scolding, no repayment plan, nothing. Just forgiveness, and a grandfather's smile that I was okay. My grandfather's grace reminds me of God's grace in Jeremiah 31. There, despite their tremendous failings, God promises a restored relationship with his people, saying, I will forgive their wickedness, and I will remember their sins no more. I'm sure my grandfather never forgot that I had wrecked his truck, but he acted just like God does here, not remembering it, not shaming me, not making me work to repay the debt I rightfully owed.

Just as God says he'll do, my grandfather chose to remember it no more, as if the destructive thing I'd done had never happened. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Jeremiah chapter 31 verses 27 through 34. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the Lord. In those days people will no longer say, The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. Instead, everyone will die for their own sin.

Whoever eats sour grapes, their own teeth will be set on edge. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, Know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for your forgiveness. When we put shame on ourselves, help us to recall that, in Christ, we are completely forgiven, and you remember our sins no more. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. I'm Stephen Tabor, and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.