Your Sins Are Gone
“You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.”
(1 John 3:5)
Your sins are gone. Not hiding. Not stored away in heaven somewhere. Not sitting in a divine filing cabinet with your name written across the front, waiting for God to pull the folder back out the next time you mess up and add another page to your file.
They are gone. G-O-N-E. Gone.
I realize that might sound extreme, especially if you’ve spent years hearing that God forgives your sins but somehow continues keeping track of them. Even me writing that sentence only makes sense if you don’t think about it.
Did the Cross work or not? Was it just so-so? Was it ho-hum? Was it meh?
The truth is: the Cross was a huge success.
But what’s really sad is that most Christians have been taught to believe it wasn’t.
God forgave me, but He still remembers what I did.
Jesus took away my sins, but I better keep getting them removed one by one through repenting of them.
God isn’t counting my sins against me, but I’m sure He keeps track of the ones I don’t stop committing.
Friend, that’s confusing, isn’t it?
If Jesus actually took away your sins, then we need to allow those words to mean what they say. He took them away. So even when you sin in the future, that sin has already been taken away too.
THE LAMB WHO TAKES AWAY SIN
When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, he made an incredible statement: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). John could have used a lot of words to describe Jesus. He could have called Him the Messiah. The King. The Son of God. The promised One. But here, John called Him a Lamb.
That wasn’t accidental.
The Hebrew people knew exactly what lambs had to do with sin. For generations, they had watched animals be sacrificed, first at the tabernacle and then at the temple. Animal blood was continually being shed because sin was continually being dealt with through a sacrificial system that could never permanently solve the problem (see Hebrews 10:1-4,11).
Then Jesus showed up.
His cousin John looked at Him and immediately knew this was the Lamb who would do what regular lambs could never do: take sin away once and for all time (see 1 Peter 3:18, Hebrews 9:12-14, 10:4,10-12,14).
Not temporarily hide it. Not move it to another pile. Not keep it nearby in case God needed it later.
Take. It. Away.
That’s a completely different result than what the ongoing animal bloodshed was doing.
1 John 3:5 says something similar: “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins.”
Why did Jesus appear? To take away sins. That’s a real thing—a feat He actually accomplished with His own blood on the Cross. So here’s a simple question: Did He succeed or not?
Because if Jesus appeared to take away sins but our sins are still standing between us and God, then Jesus didn’t accomplish what He came to accomplish. Ultimately, His physical trip here to the planet He created would have just been for funzies.
But no, the Lamb of God literally took away your sins. Jesus succeeded.
WHERE DID GOD PUT YOUR SINS?
Imagine someone comes to your house and says, “I’m here to take away your trash, but you didn’t set out the cans.” You’d be grateful they rang your doorbell to remind you. You wouldn’t say, “What! Those are mine! How dare you say you’re taking that away!”
You then slam the door, walk back into your house, and spend the rest of the afternoon angry about the trashman reminding you what he was there to do.
Then, you go out to your trash cans, dig through all your garbage while reminding yourself, “Yep, I still have all this waste.”
Well, that’s exactly what it is. Waste. A waste of your time, energy, effort, and attention. You don’t need it, but you still hang on to it.
I wonder if it’s still in the kitchen.
Children of God spend an enormous amount of their lives doing something very similar with their sins.
We dig through yesterday’s mistakes; we dig through ten years ago. Jesus took them away, gone, the worst decisions we’ve ever made or will make, but we hang on to the remnants and dig, dig, dig. We think that if we hang on to them, we can somehow make up for them. But we can’t.
The good news is, even though we hang on to these sins in our minds, the reality is they are gone. Yes, even that one.
Jesus already knew about it before you did it; He was born before you and He is God. So He can look down the timeline of your brief little blip on the radar of eternity, see all your sins, and then *poof*…
David Copperfield’s got nothing on Jesus. He’s not using sleight of hand to make your sins appear to be gone. Jesus actually made them go away.
David, not the magician but the ancestor of Jesus, prophesies in Psalm 103:10–12 about what his descendant would do with our sins 1,000 years later:
“He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
(Psalm 103:10–12)
As far as the east is from the west? That’s immeasurable.
Removed? That means removed.
And as you can see, David was still fearing the Lord because the sin of the world had not yet been dealt with. But what happened at the Cross? All sins, for all time, were dealt with. That’s why Paul said, “It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance,” not fear (see Romans 2:4).
Three chapters later, he reminds them again that they have peace with God, because of Jesus; and they are saved from the wrath of God, because of Jesus (see Romans 5:1,9).
So your sins have been obliterated. This is just another reason to thank Jesus.
GOD IS NOT KEEPING A SECRET LIST OF YOUR SINS
One of the clearest descriptions of the New Covenant is found in Hebrews 8:12: “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Then Hebrews says it again: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:17).
Apparently God really wants us to know this, but what does it mean that God remembers our sins no more? Obviously, it doesn’t mean our Creator needs to be put in a nursing home because He’s developed dementia. God doesn’t suddenly forget information. He’s God. He knows everything.
It means He is choosing to no longer remember those sins by not holding those sins against us. Why would He bring something up that the blood of Jesus has dealt with? He wouldn’t.
Institutional Christianity will do that, but not our Heavenly Father. God was serious about not keeping score of any of your sins ever again. Why? BECAUSE OF JESUS. JESUS!
But because Christ is of no value to most people who claim to be teaching about Him, this idea is strange. Jesus ultimately has become no more than a mascot to one man on stage, who isn’t telling the full truth about Him.
GOD. NO. LONGER. HOLDS. YOUR. SINS. AGAINST. YOU.
Paul describes this reality in 2 Corinthians 5:19, saying that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, “not counting people’s sins against them.”
Think about that. Not counting. Not remembering. Because of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross.
Yet how many of us believe God spends every day doing the exact opposite? A lot of us. It’s no wonder so many people give up on their relationship with Him. They’ve been lied to about who He is and what Jesus has done, so they feel like they can’t trust Him.
But you can.
God isn’t sitting in heaven with a clipboard tracking your daily sin totals; there is no secret sin-spreadsheet.
Jesus didn’t take away your sins so God could continue counting them. That makes no sense at all.
BUT I STILL SIN
Due to the fact that Jesus doesn’t mean much to the Sunday One-Man-Show, you aren’t trained up in anything He’s truly done. Therefore, the first thought which will pop into the mind of a Saint is, “But I still sin.”
Of course you do. You’re still human. One day you won’t be and then you won’t sin. But for now, Jesus has dealt with all of those sins. Yes, all.
If you go to the end of this type of reasoning, which is the gospel, yes, you could sin every second of the day until the day you die, and you’re still forgiven. That’s a tough thought to deal with. I get it.
But notice I said could, not should. There’s a difference there. Could reveals freedom. Should promotes licentiousness, as in, “Oh yeah! Grace is great! That’s why you should sin even more!”
I don’t say that. Those of us who truly grasp what Christ has done don’t say that. We say could, not should. If you couldn’t sin, then your freedom is gone, and you’re right back to your sins being held against you. You literally have permission to sin, but it will never fulfill you.
That’s why Paul told the Corinthians, “All things are permissible (there’s permission), but not all things are beneficial,” and he actually said this twice in the same letter to hammer home the point (see 1 Corinthians 6:12, 10:23).
So, you sin…
Let that sit…
… … …
It’s tough when you are taught so many bad things about sin, but when you are taught a lot more good things about Jesus, your consciousness starts to become less inflamed. The author of Hebrews wanted this same thing to happen to the Jews who were still obsessed with following the commandments in the Law and bloody animal sacrifices at the temple. If they would just recenter on what Christ had accomplished with their sins, they would no longer have consciousness of their sins (see Hebrews 10:1-2). Same thing I want for you, my friend.
Not that sinning doesn’t matter, but that what Jesus has done with your sins matters much more. You’ll be surprised at how much less sinning happens when you become Christ-conscious.
GOD WON’T SEW THE CURTAIN BACK UP
When Jesus died, something incredible happened at the temple. Matthew 27:51 says, “The curtain was torn in two from top to bottom.”
Top to bottom, and it was tall! So only God could do it!
Now here’s the thing: that curtain wasn’t a decorative drape. It represented separation. Under the Old Covenant, access to God’s presence was extremely restricted. The high priest entered the Most Holy Place, behind that curtain—also known as the veil—under very specific conditions, and animal blood was involved.
This is exactly why, when Jesus died and shed His blood, that curtain was ripped by our Creator! You now have full access to Him because of what Jesus has done!
Christ Himself opened the way for you to draw near to God permanently, by grace, through faith in what He has done.
What’s diabolical is that a lot of “Christian teaching” acts as though every time we sin, God sews that thing back up. Then you gotta do a bunch of stuff again to get Him to tear it again.
Did we confess enough, cry enough, promise to do better enough, tithe enough, and *bam* God tears it open again. That is, until tomorrow, or later today. Or in the next 5 minutes.
Then God gets the sewing machine back out, sews it up. Tears it down. Sews it up. Tears. Sews. Tears.
No! That is ludicrous! The curtain is torn by Him and He will always leave it torn.
Hebrews 10:19 says we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place “by the blood of Jesus,” and that ain’t about walking back into the Jewish temple, past the curtain. We’re talking about access to God Himself right where you are, at this very moment. And do you see what you can have?
Confidence.
Not terror.
Not I hope God lets me in today. You’re already in.
Not I had a pretty good week, so I think I’m allowed to get close. You’re already as close as close can be. Hidden in Him (see Colossians 3:3). How can you possibly be removed if God has hidden you?
You can’t.
Your access is permanent because of what Jesus has done on the Cross with His own blood, removing the barrier completely.
STOP THROWING DIRT ON YOURSELF
There’s something interesting about shame. Jesus took away our sins, God refuses to count them against us, and yet we can still carry them around mentally, as though that never happened.
We keep punishing ourselves for something God isn’t punishing us for. We keep replaying something God isn’t holding against us.
We can even think beating ourselves up is somehow a sign of spiritual maturity.
Look how terrible I feel about what I did. Surely God appreciates this.
Friend, He doesn’t appreciate your false humility. He appreciates your one-time faith in what His Son has done (see Hebrews 11:6).
If you really want to honor God, stop trying to suffer emotionally to make up for your sins.
That doesn’t mean you never think about something you’ve done wrong. Sometimes remembering a bad decision helps you remember how bad it was so you don’t do it again. Apologize, if it’s possible. Repair something you’ve damaged, if it’s possible. That includes yourself.
And yes, sometimes the consequences remain long after a choice has been made, and we’ve done everything we can do to make things right, but there’s a massive difference between learning from the past and living underneath your past.
One produces maturity in the grace and knowledge of Christ, as well as a deeper understanding of who you are as the new creation.
The other produces shame.
Shame is not from God. Shame is based on being accused of something God has already chosen to remember no more.
There’s no condemnation for you (Romans 8:1); every shameful thing you would ever say, do, or think was absorbed by Christ on the Cross.
Your sins are buried but you’re not. Live that way.
WHAT CAN SEPARATE YOU NOW?
Sin once stood as an enormous problem between humanity and God—primarily the sin of unbelief. So Jesus dealt with sin once and for all time at Golgotha. This is exactly why Hebrews 9:26 says Christ “appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
Once for all. Do away with sin. Himself.
There’s a finality to the gospel and this is it.
And once again, notice who did the work?
Jesus.
You didn’t do away with your sin.
Your church attendance didn’t.
Your Bible reading didn’t.
Your generosity didn’t.
Your improved behavior didn’t.
Your promises didn’t.
Your tears didn’t.
Your self-abasement didn’t.
Jesus did.
That’s why Paul came to this incredible conclusion:
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).
Did you catch one of those?
The future. Things to come.
Whatever tomorrow holds, whatever mistakes you make, whatever immature thing you say or do, Jesus isn’t going anywhere. You’re not bouncing in and out of His presence based on your performance. Instead, it was His performance, even to the point of shedding blood, which causes you to never be separated again.
Your sins are gone, so Jesus stays.
This devotional is from an upcoming book! Check out Matt’s other bestselling books here!