The God Who Does Not Weaponize Our Sins

Have you ever felt the sting of people bringing up old faults, failings, or sins that you thought had already been dealt with? Have you ever watched the deadly and divisive dominos begin falling as their spreading of gossip and slander about these things steals, kills, and destroys relationships you thought were yours forever? 

This morning I was getting to know God in a Higher/Deeper experience relating to how he deals with me regarding my sin, and I suddenly came to this realization: God does not WEAPONIZE my sins! 

Let me show you how I got there because it may very well be the journey you need to make as well. It began with this scripture: 

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity

    and passing over transgression

    for the remnant of his inheritance?

He does not retain his anger forever,

    because he delights in steadfast love.[1]

First, the question is, “Who is a God like you?” 

The answer is, “no one!!!” 

However, the effect of this reality is wonder, and worship, and praise, and relief, and thanksgiving, and peace, and joy, and rest, that this God, the one who has no counterpart in any other religion or people, is OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN!!![2] 

Second, what is it about this only true God that is the focus of Micah’s praise and worship? 

Answer: that this only and true God pardons iniquity and passes over transgression. 

Third, what is the impact on me that the God who has made sure I know him wants me to know this about him? 

Answer: that I can face how utterly sinful I am in the glory of his presence because he does not bring up my sins to condemn them, but to pardon them. 

Here is the piercing wonder for me this morning: for God to pardon my iniquities, it means he does not hold them against me. For God to pass over my transgression, it means he does not stop and build a monument to my sins so I can never forget them. 

Not only do I say, “Who is a God like you?”, but I also add, “Who is a PERSON like you?” 

Among people, and especially among those claiming to be God’s people, there is no one like our God who only addresses my iniquity to pardon it (not use it against me), and only confronts my transgressions in order to pass them over, and to let me know he is doing so. 

And then it hit me: God does not WEAPONIZE my sins! 

I’m sure you can imagine how it feels when our sins are weaponized against us. Too many of us have had people who have turned our sins against us (even sins they have imagined or manufactured). But God wants us to know this about him, that he does not weaponize our sins to club us to death with them. 

Now, if you’re wondering how “bad” our sins are, consider these scriptures: 

·         “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”[3]

·         “without faith it is impossible to please him”[4]

·         “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”[5] 

And yet, with such a hopeless measurement of what is sinful, God wants me to know my poverty of spirit, mourn my not-good-enough condition, meekly admit my failure by surrendering to Jesus’ authority, and let myself hunger and thirst for the righteousness of faith in the faith that he will satisfy me with the faith I long for![6] 

Application: I am going through a season of grieving that is every bit as real as losing loved ones. However, any self-dependent trying to fix what is broken is not by faith, therefore it is sin. Trying to get back what God has taken away is not by faith no matter how grief protests.[7] 

Which means that, somehow, in all my grieving and attachment-pain, God’s one concern is that I attach to him in faith, do only what is joining his work by faith, and leave everything else in his hands, also by faith, and all with the faith that none of my sins and failures are being held against me by him! 

I feel a big sigh of resignation. I am a grieving child who is loved in my incompleteness and immaturity. I am loved as I talk with Father about my childish ideas and perceptions while he already knows what he is doing with thoughts and intentions and ways so infinitely above my own. 

All of this is a wonder to me, and I go into this day truly wondering what he is going to do with this work of his: to silence my heart in its striving to fix my grief and to help me experience knowing him as “who is a God like you?” more than I have ever known him like this before. 

Now I must join him by letting go of all others and resting only in what he himself is doing. It is too big for me. However, knowing this is today’s blessing. And my childish grieving heart is comforted.

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

---

[1] Micah 7:18

[2] I mean this only for those people who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior so they are born-again into the adoption that is theirs forever.

[3] Romans 14:23

[4] Hebrews 11:6

[5] James 4:17

[6] Based on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12

[7] I say this based on the book of Job where Job responded to all his losses by saying, “‘Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away; blessed be the name of Yahweh’” (Job 1:21).