I begin this devotion with the cry of two men, who though they never knew one another and came from different times and different circumstances, yet they both have similar circumstances that caused them to cry unto God from the depth of their souls. One came from the prophet Jonah, “When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple” (Jonah 2:7). The other came from King David, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:1-3). As I said, neither man knew the other, but they are both “tied together” through the one sin that caused them great guilt and anguish. And notice that David said, “for I know my transgressions”, as in many. All of us can recall or call up sins that we have yet to ask forgiveness for or have yet brought before the “throne of grace”, yet it was for the one particular sin that they cried out for forgiveness, the one sin that stood out before all others, that they needed forgiveness. And so, from the bottom of their heart, they cried out, and from the depth of God’s love, they received forgiveness.
A very godless man, noted for his profanity, was one day carrying a heavy load up a gangplank to a large ship to be carried off to another destination. Another man, one of his co-workers, followed behind him, accidently knocking this man off his feet and into the water below the gangplank. The last thing the godless man did was to curse his fellow worker for causing him to fall into the ocean. He called him everything he could before he sank into the water below. He immediately disappeared from sight. After some time, seeing that he was not coming back up, he was rescued from beneath the boat, apparently drowned. Strenuous efforts put forth to resuscitate him were finally successful. With his first breath he cried out, “Praise God, I’m saved!” “Yes, you were pretty near gone,” someone replied. “No, I don’t mean saved from drowning,” he said, “I mean saved inside. The Lord has taken my sins away.”
Then he told them when he found himself beneath the boat, he thought the end had come. In those few seconds he saw himself kneeling again at his mother’s side, and heard her prayers for him. His sin, as high as a mountain, rose before him, and he cried to God to save him by the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. It was for that moment he realized he was forgiven, and thus he praised God with the first breath of his lips. From his sin, from the weight of that sin, he was declared not guilty and forgiven, and he was forever released from the burden of his sins.
David wrote in Psalm 103, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as far as the east is from the west, does he remove our transgressions from us,” (Psalm 103:812). Think about that. If you are traveling east, you never once go west. The two never meet, nor do our sins once forgiven remain in a book of records, for He has indeed forgiven us. The Apostle John reminds us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” (1 John 1:9). Have you confessed your sins unto God? He will not only forgive you, but will remember them no more. Why not confess your sins today?
