Today is Trash Day, that wonderful day every week where we go around the house, gathering up the garbage we’ve been collecting for the last several days, and chucking it into the trash container by the curb, never to be seen again.
I always feel a little guilty and amazed by the amount of trash our little family can generate in a week. With that in mind, I’m always looking for more ways we can recycle what we can, so, instead of ending up in a landfill, the things we discard can be remade into useful items again.
There are some things, however, we can’t and shouldn’t recycle. The recycling center has a whole list of them. With those things the only place they should go is in the trash where they belong.
Our sins and mistakes should never be recycled either, yet how often we do just that. We remember some past mistake and that old guilt comes rising to the surface again. We bemoan our error and chastise ourselves once more for being such fools. Our past comes back to haunt us, stealing away our hope for a brighter future, bearing it under the refuse of our past sins. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
The Bible tells us “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love…he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:8, 10-12 NIV).
God doesn’t recycle our sins, throwing them back in our faces, whenever we mess up again. No, He says, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:12). In fact, He promises He will “hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:19).
If God’s not going to recycle our sins, why should we? Let’s leave them, along with all our guilt and shame, where they belong – in the depths of the sea. Let’s trust God that He meant it when He said, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). Today is Trash Day. Let’s give Jesus all our sins and let Him take them away – never to be seen again.