Too good to be true? To be forgiven means to NOT have your faults or actions held against you. Is it possible? If so, how? Can I forgive you just because I decide to do so? Something tells me that you are familiar with the shaky nature of a forgiveness that can leave as quickly as it came. And I’ll bet that you have beat yourself up as many times as I have because you have to keep forgiving the same person over and over for the same thing. The fact of the matter is that you cannot lean upon your concept of forgiveness without leaving you in total confusion. When the Pharisees criticized Jesus by saying, “Only God can forgive sins!”, they had a valid point – they just didn’t know who they were criticizing. The real question is: How can GOD forgive sins? Does God forgive because He is so powerful and can do what He wants? It’s funny He doesn’t suggest anything of the sort. It’s not because He’s so big-hearted, either. He forgives because He DID SOMETHING about it! He took sin out of the way by killing His Son for the offenses. No, He wasn’t mad and, therefore, needed to have His anger appeased – that’s the closest men can figure it – He could not reconcile ANYTHING without doing away with the source of the problem, which is everything that is not consistent with Himself. BOTTOM LINE: A person is forgiven because there is NOTHING held against them because the offending stuff has been REMOVED! God’s “forgetfulness” of our sins is not from senility, but from the fact that there is NOTHING to remember! There is nothing to remember because of what Jesus did! God doesn’t remember your sins against you and, therefore, does not HOLD them against you! Are you afraid He might discover something that Jesus didn’t take care of?