Many of us who have been tormented by guilt and regrets for past mistakes we’ve made know the pain of wondering how to atone for them and move on. If we try to make amends through our own efforts, we may wonder if we can ever do enough to undo the wrong that we’ve done. We have two ways of dealing with this: we can either continue to beat ourselves up over our sins or accept the absolute and eternal forgiveness Jesus offers us through His finished works.

Jesus loves us so much that He died on the cross to erase every sin we could ever commit. When He uttered, “It is finished,” those three words indicated the completion of all that He had come to earth to accomplish for us. He didn’t mean just forgiveness, though, He also extended grace for our healing, our deliverance, our prosperity, and everything else we would ever need to live a godly life.

Jesus’ blood was necessary for this perfect sacrifice because, as shown in both the Old and New Testaments, blood was required in order to deal with sin. Under the old covenant, blood was required to be shed annually, but under the new covenant, the shedding of His blood was only required once. This means that we don’t have to beg God for forgiveness or any of the other blessings He has already made available. We simply need to believe what His blood did for us.

Our forgiveness doesn’t come progressively or in stages. Because of what Jesus did, we received total forgiveness and everything else we will ever need before we were even born. We receive this by faith. Only God’s grace is able to provide unearned, unmerited forgiveness, plus so much more, for an undeserving people.

Prayer:

Lord, You are a good and loving God who doesn’t want to see us suffer. You sent Your Son to give us perfect forgiveness for all time. He loved us so much that He bled and died to give us what we don’t deserve. In Jesus’ name, thank You for that. Amen.

Scriptures:

• John 19:30
• 2 Peter 1:3
• Hebrews 9:12-28
• Hebrews 10:1-14
• Ephesians 1:7