#Forgiven
Wednesday Night Devo 201401.29

Teenagers are intresting creatures. Sometimes they will surprise you when you least expect it. 

I expect a lot of our teens here at Church Street. I expect them to be upright citizens of God's Kingdom. I expect them to be here at worship at all times. I also expect them to be honest with me. 

Golden 60's is coming up, and I put a few of our youth in charge of some things. This was an experiment, as it so often is with teenagers. I wanted to see if 1) they would actually do it, and 2) if they would tell me if they couldn't. I gave the assignment weeks ago, and hadn't done anything to help since. 

Last Sunday a few of the youth that I had assigned this thing to approached me like adults and basically confessed and said, "Look, we don't think this is going to work out. We don't think we can do this." 

It was a big assignment, one that expected this result. The kids in question had no idea how I would react, but I calmly said, "That's ok. I just wanted to see if you could do it. I've got a backup plan." 

The look of relief on their faces was priceless. That they had just been forgiven of something and not yelled at or chastised was a huge relief to them. In fact, I applaud their responsiblity to actually telling me that they couldn't do it instead of just waiting until the last minute and saying something. 

Sometimes I think we as Christians forget that feeling of forgiveness that we have from God. We forget how relieving that can feel. We forget how it takes loads off of us when we're forgiven. 

We forget that we have to leave our past sin and our past guilt from that sin behind. Paul says in Philippians 3.13 that "I have forgotten what lies behind and I strain forward to what lies ahead." I'm convinced that so many of us struggle with our Christianity because we won't leave sin behind. Because we're not certian of our salvation. Because we don't *feel* forgiven. 

When our God forgives, he forgets. Isaiah 38.17 describes God's forgivness as "You have cast all your sins behind your back." Micah 7.19 says that God has "cast all our sins into the depths of the sea." Psalm 103.12 tells us that "As far as the east is to the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us." 

Our God is a forgiving God. And the more we learn about Him, the more we learn about his grace and forgiveness for us. We can have that relief just like those teenagers did. 

If you, tonight, are in Christ, you are forgiven. If you have made that decision to be baptized, then you can count yourself as one of the forgiven. You can have that security and relief that comes with being forgiven. If you haven't put on Christ in baptism, it's available to everyone. It's available to you tonight. You can be washed of your sins. Forgiven. Relieved. 

Don't wait. Come while we stand and sing.