Where is your sin?

Where is your sin? Where has it been and where is it now? For many like David it is "always before" them. Like the Albatross hung around the old mariner's neck and the "A" sown onto the adulteress' dress, we are constantly reminded of our sin, its shame and its consequences. Like Achan we might try to hide our sin, but its always there. Like Poe's "Tell-Tale" heart the reality of our sin seems inescapable. Sin's first victims tried to hide their sin, covering themselves with leaves and trying to avoid their creator and One with whom they had such sweet communion before their selfishness and the serpent's seduction caused their fall. Achan tried to bury his sin in the floor of his tent, but he quickly and painfully learned as did his family that you can not hide sin. Others don't try to hide their sin. They seem to parade around with it. Isaiah pronounced woe to those that "draw sin along with chords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes". So many struggle with sin. We drag it with us. We throw it over our shoulder like a huge backpack full of defeat, despair, discouragement and failure. It weighs us down as we try to find our way in this life. It is God's desire for us to get rid of our sin. He longs to free us from its heavy burden. 1 John 1:9 says that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness". He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve. "As far as the east is from the west, He has removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12) Where is my sin? It has been forgiven! God has taken it and thrown it into His sea of forgetfullness! My heart joins with the writer of the old hymn and sings, "my sin oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed to His cross and I bear it no more! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord oh my soul!"