Is it good to be sin-conscious? Is that what God really wants?

The answer straight up, is no. To say God wants us conscious of the sins which have been removed from us, as far as the east is from the west, is to contradict and confuse ourselves

1

. It is to say that God is still asking us to pay for a debt He has already paid.

The ancient Jews were reminded of their sin every year when they brought animal sacrifices to the priests, because the blood of those animals could not remove their sin, only cover the sin temporarily

2

. If the blood from the animal sacrifices were sufficient to remove sin, and therefore remove sin-consciousness, God would not have sent Jesus to shed His blood. This means that God not only wanted to forgive our sin, but to remove reminders of sin

3

. It is so simple, yet we forget daily, weekly or even yearly. But still the Cross is there. Pausing just for a moment to recognise the contradiction in our own thinking of the reality of sin in God’s eyes – all completely removed by the perfect blood of Christ - once again we are lead to the wonder of His great love for us

4

. Sin-consciousness seems good. It seems holy. It seems like the ‘right thing to do’, to be consciously aware of our failures and short-comings, but let us again turn our eyes to the Cross. It God wanted us conscious of our sin Christ would not have come to shed His blood. Eternal blood has been shed for our eternal debt and we have been eternally forgiven

5

. Amen.

References:

1. Psalm 103: 12

2. Hebrews 10: 1-4

3. Hebrew 10: 5-12

4. Ephesians 2: 4

5. Romans 4: 7-8