When someone is arrested for a crime and brought into court, the prosecutor will say, ‘The charges against you are…’ At that point, they hope their lawyer can get the charges dismissed. God has a record of every sin we’ve committed since our lives began. It has details of all the bad decisions we’ve made, the vengeful acts and unforgiving attitudes, the prejudices we’ve had, the greed, the lust, and the lies; He’s recorded all of it.

But we’ll never see that record. Neither will anyone else. That’s because ‘he forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross’ (v.13-14 NLT). Jesus knew the price for wiping out our sins was death, so to save us, He ‘suffered for our sins once for all time…he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God’ (1 Peter 3:18 NLT). The cross is like a trading post. There, at the point of believing faith, God takes all your sins and puts them on Christ’s account, while at the same time taking all Christ’s righteousness and putting it into your account.

Is there a limit to God’s love? If there is, David the adulterer never found it. Paul the persecutor of Christians and Peter the liar never reached it. The thief on the cross never discovered it. And you won’t find it either. When Jesus cried from the cross, ‘It is finished,’ God wrote ‘Paid in full’ over every sin you would ever commit. For us, the word ‘justified’ means ‘just-if-I’d-never-sinned’. How good is that?

What Now?

Draw the outline of a cross, and inside it, or around it, write any sins, mistakes, or failings that you know you struggle with. Then over the top of the whole drawing, in a different colour, write ‘Paid in full’ in large letters. Then spend a few minutes thanking God that, whatever our flaws, His love never fails.