Tuesday Tunes

Tuesday Tunes: I’m Forgiven

I love music, and like most people I can’t be pinned down to one genre. I’ll even take rap or heavy metal, if the content is bearable. Music makes us feel. It stirs us from the inside and so often the rhythm does actually get you, just like Gloria Estefan warned.

I’m a lyrics gal – all about the words, and when I hear a lyric it becomes hard wired into my brain. I can’t forget it no matter how hard I try. Achy Breaky Heart – really – please make it go away. For that reason, I have to be careful about the content of the music that I enjoy. Oh be careful little ears what you hear, right?

Today, my inner iPod hit repeat on one line of a song called “Forgiven” by Sanctus Real. It’s not a new song, released in 2010, but neither is its message.

Sanctus Real: "Forgiven" 

I’m reminded of the wrong

That I have said and done

And that devil just won’t let me forget

In this life

I know what I’ve been

But here in your arms

I know what I am

I’m forgiven

I can’t contemplate this truth without gratitude greater than words welling up in the depths of my soul. Without the atoning work of Christ on the cross, the wrong that I have said and done would have created an unbridgeable chasm between me and a Holy God, but through Him, I am forgiven (period).  That is who I am, a title that defines my existence.

Now that I am forgiven, having repented and turned away from ugly like you could never begin to imagine just by looking at me, I am no longer bound to the memory of the past offenses, except, of course, when the devil just won’t let me forget. In those moments I remember that my Forgiver chooses not to remember my transgressions (Jeremiah 31:41 NIV). He has removed them from as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12 NIV).

How about you? Does the enemy taunt you with sins of the past, tricking you into believing that you are too tarnished or too damaged to be used by a Perfect King? Or worse, that you are too much of anything bad to even be a child of God?

Hebrews 10:17-18 says, “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more. And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary."

Sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. Oh My Goodness that’s some good news, and I pray that you hear it, internalize it, and live it out.

The depth of my sin is a reminder of the depth of His forgiveness. I embrace the chance to offer Him praise at that thought, but I refuse to allow the enemy to negate that opportunity with thoughts of shame and guilt.

Here are some other great songs about God’s amazing choice to not remember all that He has forgiven.

                                           Casting Crowns: "East to West"

And one of the best lyrics ever, "I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us." Kim Walker with Jesus Culture: "How He Loves Us"