NEW YEAR'S MEDITATION

The best way to begin a new year is to know that you are free and clear. “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
(Isa. 43:25)

“God locates his very identity in blotting out our sins and remembering them no more. Satan, the accuser, comes before God and says, “Look at that Christian down. there. Why do you still love him? Don’t you remember what he did to you last week, and again on Tuesday, and then again yesterday?” And God says, if you’ll allow me to put it this way, “No, I don’t remember. Gabriel, where does that believer stand with us? Check the database.” Gabriel logs on, but the only information that comes up on the screen is the righteousness of Christ freely credited to that sinner, because that’s how God honors himself as God. “I blot out your transgressions, I splice your bad plays out of my game film, for my own sake.” So God says back to Satan, “I’m not saying your facts are wrong, but you’re not telling the whole story about that Christian. What matters most to me, for my own sake, is not that person’s record but Christ’s record for him.” That is grace. That is God.”
– Ray Ortlund