Daily Lesson for January 26, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 10 verses 16 through 23:

16 ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
   after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
   and I will write them on their minds’,
17he also adds,
‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
18Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

19 Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,20by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.23Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

The writer of Hebrews calls it approaching the throne of God and we may well call it living a whole-hearted life. It is the freedom we find in living without the shackles of guilt and shame. It is the grace of knowing that we are known completely and still loved unconditionally. It is the grace of knowing that we have been seen in the nakedness of our shame, but that the one who has seen us will choose not to remember it all. It is to know that the knower will know but choose not to remember.

Only pure Love can know us in such a way as to know and choose not to remember. Only pure Love can know and then forget. For as Paul says, “Love keeps no record of wrongdoing”. God is pure Love. And some of us have had the grace of being loved with pure Love here on earth as it is in heaven. Sometimes this is called confession, or the Fifth Step, or simply forgiveness, which is literally letting go of the right to call upon a memory for the sake of retribution.

We might ask ourselves when we’ve experienced forgiveness. When have we spoken who we are and been freed by the words of absolution — of letting go? When have we approached the throne of grace? When have we hear the words, “You are forgiven; in your deepest secret place you are forgiven.”

It takes faith to go before the mercy seat, to walk forward and to trust that all which is laid before the altar shall be known and also forgotten. It is a moment of fear and trembling; and it is also the moment when a life of true-heartedness really begins.