It’s too easy for me to beat myself over the head thinking about all the things I’ve said and done, which, collectively, haven’t received God’s Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for spiritual excellence. Not by a long stretch. Hard to remember why I went downstairs to get something just now, yet I can instantly recollect some nasty kid’s prank I participated in multiple decades ago as if it were earlier today. Such a smarty-pants!

Sadly, I’m not alone, for many are just as sensitive about their foibles as I am. Others couldn’t care less how God views their actions and motives. But I do. And that’s not a bad trait. It forces me to inch closer to God for His help and understanding, never letting me wander too far from Jesus.

So, how should we deal with our moral and spiritual failures? Therapy sessions? Group confessionals? Write them on a piece of paper and toss them in the fire? There’s some help there. But listen to what St. Paul writes in Colossians 2–‘And you, who were dead in your trespasses…God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing them to the cross’ (vs. 13-14).

Do you hear what St. Paul says? Sin deadens us. Kills us. ‘Dead in your trespasses.’ But there’s hope. Where? In the cross of Jesus Christ, God brings us new life by trusting in the crucified Christ. Jesus gave Himself for us. His death cancels our own. Any records of what we owed were erased, paid in full, with all negative balances wiped clean. Gone and forgotten. The Lord forgives all our sins.

Did you speed-read a very important word in that last sentence? If so, read it again. ‘All’. All our sins forgiven. Now that’s no excuse to get wild, having no regard for our actions or words. To let them rip with abandon, caring not if we trample all over God’s best for us. Giving the heave-ho to the Bible, while wallowing in the muck and mire of sin. No. If you’re really a child of God, a godly life is what you most want. So, be careful, vigilant, and on your guard to follow the Lord’s ways and what He says. But when we stray, as we all will, then know who to come to to make things right again.

But what about some really shameful things from my past? What about them? Don’t you wonder about your own? That’s when we need to reread those verses from Colossians 2. Those words about ‘all our trespasses’. ‘All’ our sin, ‘all’ our selfishness, ‘all’ our self-centeredness and greed. Forgiven and forgotten…by God. ‘All’ still means ‘all’.

Does God mean it? What do you think? Chew on that this week. I will.

Lord Jesus, thank you for dealing with all of my sins on the cross, once for all. And all for your sake, always. Amen.