The photo below is courtesy of Etiliyle.  His words are in Italian, but his photos speak a universal language of beauty and art.  I am fortunate to have gotten his permission to use this beautiful photograph.  

God has taken away your sins.  If you are a Christian and have accepted His forgiveness and grace, then you can rest in His peace.  God has removed them.  Have you ever gotten up early in the morning and captured an image like the one above?  If you have, then you know that the sky changes as the sun rises higher in the sky or as it disappears below the horizon.  The changes are fast and hard to capture with a camera.  That is how quickly God removes your sins.  Can you see them any longer once God has removed them?  No, and the good news is that no one else can see them either.  God has redeemed you with the blood of Jesus Christ.  What does that mean? He paid the price for you.  According to the dictionary on Google, redeemed means “to gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment.”  The synonyms are to reclaim or repossess.  So, what God has redeemed is your soul.  He has re-captured it from the destruction of eternity with Satan and reclaimed you as His child.  You were born to be His child from the beginning of your existence, but at some time in your life, you have to be “born again,” a moment in your life when you turn away from your sin and ask for God’s forgiveness.  And His reply is the Scripture above; He desires that we return to Him because He loves us so much, enough that He gave His Son to die for our sins.

This photo is from Pinterest.com via Google.

This is God’s love for us, demonstrated once for everyone.  We were still sinners, and yet Jesus took our sin on Himself and suffered and died for us.  He died in one of the most excruciating and painful ways imaginable.  But He willingly lay down His life for us so that we can be redeemed by God.  So much love was on that cross!

Jesus showed love to all he met, but one of the Bible stories that I recall most vividly is His encounter with the adulterous woman.  At a time when stoning was the absolute required penalty for adultery, the “holier than thou” people dragged her before Jesus, expecting His condemnation.  Jesus, however, just knelt in the sand and starting writing.  No one knows what He was writing, but whatever it was, her accusers ended up walking away and leaving Jesus with her, just the two of them.  What a beautiful picture of love as he tells her that she is no longer condemned.

This photo is courtesy of Biblepic.com via Google.

Jesus also tells the adulterous woman, the one whom He forgives, “Go, and sin no more.”  We are forgiven once when we accept Jesus into our hearts and ask Him to forgive us.  But we are being forgiven daily and will ultimately receive His forgiveness on Judgment Day.  We are not to presume on His grace and mercy.  While we linger on the earth, after our salvation, we are told to stop sinning.  As a human, I confess that I still sin.  I still make wrong choices.  Nevertheless, I still consider myself a Christian saved by grace.  I sin, I confess and I feel His love and forgiveness in my heart.  I don’t want to sin; I don’t plan to sin.  But when I do, I know that God is faithful to forgive me because He has redeemed me for eternity.  I just don’t want to presume on His grace and mercy.  I start each day with thanksgiving for His love for me and my plan for each day is to serve Him.  When I fall short, I pick myself up and continue to run the race of this life.  It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.  And the finish line is Heaven.  I hope to see you there!