"The mercy of God and the forgiveness is in order to abate and consume our wrath, not His."
Julian of Norwich
"Love... keeps no record of wrongs."
1 Corinthians 13:5 (NIV)
We can see sin and offense, guilt and blame, forgiveness and reconciliation. We can think God is keeping a record of our wrongs and that we must 'do' something about them to get back on His 'good' side, get Him to be okay or favorable toward us again. But that is our human story. That is not God's story.
God's story is all love, gentle, embracing, accepting love. This love keeps no record of wrongs. That means God is not offended by our wrong acts. He is not turned away from us or holding back His favor till something is 'done' about sin. He doesn't list, keep track of or remember any of our sin. He sees no sin on us! He says, there is nothing to forgive. He is always facing us, always loving us, always favoring us, always seeing us as innocent children. He is always our friend, never angry with us, never changing in His total embrace of us.God's story is that we are friends and nothing can change that. God's story is of a perfect bond of love between us that can never be broken. God's story doesn't even see sin; it only sees goodness and purity and oneness!
We are the ones needing help getting past the sin issue, with its shame and blame, not God. God isn't playing the shame and blame game! His only game is love! After all, at the cross God was in Christ reconciling us back to Him, not reconciling Him back to us. So the forgiveness we feel is to help us get over OUR shame and blame. He pours out a waterfall of forgiveness and reconciliation through Christ to reconcile OUR minds back to the truth of His forever friendship with us, to appease OUR wrath at ourselves and others, to take away OUR blindness to His love! What an amazing God and what an amazing Friend!
A Thought: Thank You, Jesus, for never being angry with me, never turning away from me! Thank You for always looking at me with friendship and love!