God Says You Are Forgiven

by kingteamdad

“I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you.” (Isaiah 43:25 TEV)

RAMBLINGS from Evan’s dad – I was telling Evan the other day about a man I worked with several years ago.  The man, “Bob”, vacillated between being agnostic and atheist.

Bob’s reason was the same for either “non-belief”. One day while driving him to the airport we got into a deep discussion. When God came up he immediately mentioned war. Bob would go into great detail how there could not be a loving God who would create us, and then let us blow each other to smithereens in war. He then went on to say if there was a God that would allow that to happen, he wanted nothing to do with that God.

He would give me the death tolls and number of maimed and wounded from the World Wars. He would then get angry. His anger would be focused on any god that would be that mean to let that kind of evil take place.

I brought up the decision that Adam and Eve made to disobey God. I told him how I saw that as the door being opened to let sin into the world. If you look at the early history in the Bible, after the garden of Eden, man quickly strayed further and further away from God. And left to his own devices, man can get pretty evil.

My limited knowledge of the Bible led me to believe that God was all knowing. Which to me, meant He knew man would rebel, but He made us anyway.

Bob quickly jumped in to tell me I was proving his point. His position was God knew things were going to quickly devolve to wars and wickedness. Therefore, in light of all that suffering, God was a “mean god”! And he wanted nothing to do with a “mean god”.

I asked him “would God still be mean if He gave us the choice, and with one of those choices, He gave us a way ‘out'”?  No answer. I went on and asked him “what if our rebellion against God was seen as a capital crime and gave us a sentence of death”? Bob quickly jumped in to tell me that was more evidence of a “mean god”!

I looked at him and took in the pain and anger he held on to so tightly. I asked him what it was he thought God did that made him hate Him so badly. He wouldn’t answer and looked away. When he finally looked back at me I acted like I didn’t notice the tear in his eye.

As we approached the airport I finished with a few more comments. I asked him “what would you think of a God who sentenced you to death for your rebellion, but then in the next breath, loved you enough to offer His Son to take the death penalty in you place?”  No answer.

As my friend climbed out of the car, I looked him in the eye with great empathy and told him I would be praying for him. I would really appreciate it if you would, too!….

 

“I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25)