Why God forgives

Our cable company does something very clever and equally annoying. Every time we turn on the box it defaults back to channel 9 which is their very own local news channel. It is a battle for me to dive for the remote and at least mute this station before I hear the obligatory horrific "news" of the half hour. If anyone needs proof of the reformed tenet known as Total Depravity just turn this channel on for ten minutes. Case closed. The crimes against humanity remain the same while the mug shots of the perps change slightly day to day. Why the child abuse, arsons and crack busts are considered news- when nothing they show is "new" is beyond me.

It is at the point that I am angered by their insistence to show this sadness 24/7. WE GET IT. The world is a very sad and nasty place. Enough. It is as though they get pleasure out of showing all of the muck.

This is why God forgives sins. He has said ENOUGH. But we protest that it is because of his love for us, that is, it is about us. No, it is about God. If we as sinners say enough with the ugliness, imagine what the perfect God must think about it.

Isaiah 43:

I have not burdened you with grain offerings
nor wearied you with demands for incense
You have not bought any fragrant calumus for me,
or lavished  on me the fat of your sacrifices.
But you have burdened me with your offenses,
I, even I, am he who blots out
your transgressions for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.

Here we find that God is sick of our sins, they are a burden for him. It is clear in this passage that he blots them out- but for his own sake. He has had enough.

This follows the pattern that we have been noticing- that God acts on his own for his own reasons and for his own glory.  But because of his purity, and subsequent internal demand to annihilate sin we all benefit. This is where we as believers can be bold in our profession of faith. Our witness is not to be one of many tremblings and murmuring "maybe God will forgive me some day" but rather the proclamation that God no longer remembers our sins!! This is the Gospel, the happy news we are to hold onto and to share. Christians are often reluctant to share the Gospel, imo because it has gotten to be a complicated formula of bringing the incense and tithes to him first and to help him forgive us by our doing something. But in this passage he is past all of that. He says forget about it- we couldn't  even get that right.

He does it all.