“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1). There is a happiness that comes when we know our sins have been forgiven. The burden has been lifted. What we carried before the Lord has been taken from us, and we can begin again.
But after forgiveness, another struggle can begin. The enemy does not want us to live in the peace that Christ has given us. Jesus says that the thief comes to steal and kill (John 10:10). Very often, what he first tries to steal is our peace. Once peace is gone, the heart becomes vulnerable to fear, hopelessness and despair.
One of the easiest ways to steal that peace is through guilt about sins that have already been confessed and forgiven. We all have a past. Some parts of it may not be glorious or virtuous. But when we come to Jesus in repentance, we are not left where we were. We are forgiven, cleansed and set free by His Blood.
The enemy tempts us into sin, but after the sin has been committed, he changes his strategy. He begins to tell us that what we have done is too great to be forgiven, that there is no future for us, that we are irredeemable. He wants the memory of sin to become another form of slavery.
That is why we must know what Christ has actually done for us. Isaiah speaks of the yoke of burden and the rod of the oppressor being broken (Isaiah 9:4). Jesus has broken the yoke. If He has forgiven us, we are not meant to spend the rest of our lives chained to what He has already taken away.
The Lost Sheep Is Carried Home
I like the parable of the lost sheep because it is your story and my story. It is the story of everyone who has experienced a fall and then a return to the Lord.
Jesus speaks of a shepherd who has a hundred sheep and discovers that one is missing. He leaves the ninety-nine and goes in search of the one that is lost. Think for a moment about that sheep. To be lost is not a pleasant experience. It is alone, separated from the flock, surrounded by uncertainty. In the same way, to be lost in sin is a miserable form of slavery.
But the story does not end with the sheep remaining lost. The shepherd searches until he finds it. And when he finds it, he lifts it up and places it on his shoulders. He returns rejoicing and says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost” (Luke 15:6).
Look at where the lost sheep is now. The ninety-nine are on the ground, but the one that was lost is being carried on the shoulders of the shepherd. The sheep that wandered has been brought close to the one who came looking for it.
This does not mean that being lost was good. Sin is never good. But once Jesus enters the story, the destiny of the sinner changes. The one who was lost has been found. The one who was enslaved has been carried home. The one who had wandered now has a place close to the Shepherd.
So if you have had the painful experience of falling into sin, do not continue living as though Christ never found you. If you have repented and received His forgiveness, believe that you have been redeemed. Do not allow the enemy to keep asking the question, “But are you really forgiven?”
Sometimes people say, “How could a sin like mine be forgiven?” They look at the size of their failure instead of the mercy of God. But our confidence is not in the smallness of our sins. Our confidence is in the greatness of the redemption Christ has won. The devil wants us to keep looking backward in shame, but Jesus wants us to know that the lost sheep is no longer in the wilderness. It is on the Shepherd’s shoulders.
Untie the Boat
If we have been forgiven, we must also take care that the past no longer controls us. I once heard a story about a man who wanted to cross a river at night. There was a small boat tied to the bank, so he got into it and began rowing. The man was drunk and did not realise what he was doing. He rowed for hours.
When morning came, he opened his eyes and discovered that he was still in exactly the same place where he had started. He had rowed all night, but the boat had not moved. Then he realised the problem: he had forgotten to untie the boat from the tree.
That can happen in the spiritual life. We can pray, attend church, make good resolutions and sincerely want to move forward, yet remain tied to the same shore because we have never broken the cord that keeps us attached to the past.
One of those cords is guilt. We may know intellectually that God has forgiven us, yet still allow a past sin to define who we are. We replay it repeatedly. We imagine that the future must always be shaped by what happened before. We keep rowing, but the boat remains tied.
At some point we have to untie it. St Paul understood this. His past was not insignificant. He had persecuted Christians and participated in the violence directed against the early Church. Yet after meeting Jesus, his life changed completely. He began to live for Christ.
Then he made a very deliberate decision: “This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13). Paul knew what was behind him. He did not pretend the past had never happened. But he refused to allow it to determine the direction of the life Christ had now given him. His eyes were turned toward what lay ahead.
That is what it means to break with the past. We do not deny our sin. We repent of it. We receive forgiveness. Then we stop allowing forgiven sin to become the centre of our identity. There is still a life to be lived, a race to be finished and a purpose to fulfil. We cannot spend all our strength rowing against a rope that Christ has already given us the grace to cut.
Every Sinner Has a Future
St Augustine is another reminder of what grace can do with a human life. He spent years far from the life God was calling him to live. His past included serious sin and a relationship from which a son was born. Yet that past did not become the final word over his life. God drew him back, transformed him, and Augustine eventually became the Bishop of Hippo and one of the great saints and teachers of the Church.
There is a saying that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. Whatever its origin, the truth it expresses is clear: the sinner who repents is not a person without a future. Today’s sinner can become tomorrow’s saint. That is why hopelessness is not the voice we should follow after repentance. If God has forgiven us, we should not bow our heads again to the accusation that says we are permanently ruined. We should lift our heads and walk in the freedom Christ has given.
This does not make sin unimportant. It makes redemption greater. When guilt returns, the question is not whether the past happened. The question is whether we believe what Christ has done. Once the Lord has forgiven and redeemed us, we should lift up our heads and walk in the freedom He has given.
Cling to the Hand That Saved You
There is another image that helps explain the response of a person who knows he has been rescued. A mongoose is a wild creature and very difficult to tame. There is an old illustration about placing a young mongoose in water and then giving it a hand when it begins to sink. If this is repeated, the animal begins to associate that hand with rescue. Eventually it clings to the hand that saved it.
The point is not the animal itself. The point is the instinct to cling to the one who rescued you. That is our story. We were sinking in sin, and a hand came to our rescue: the hand of Jesus. Once we understand that those hands have saved us, the proper response is not to keep running back toward the water. It is to cling to Him.
This is where freedom from guilt must lead. Christian freedom is not simply the absence of a bad feeling. It is a new attachment. I am no longer tied to the past because I am now clinging to Christ.
St Paul expresses this in Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
That is the direction of the redeemed life. I do not spend the rest of my years trying to repair my identity by looking backward. I live for the One who loved me and gave Himself for me.
So if the Lord has forgiven you, believe His forgiveness. If He has carried you out of the wilderness, stop living as though you are still lost. If He has broken the yoke, do not place it back on your shoulders. If the boat is still tied to the past by guilt, untie it. There is a future before you.
The past may contain sin, shame and failure, but it does not have to control what comes next. Christ has come into the story. He has found the lost sheep. He has broken the yoke. He has given you His hand. Cling to Him and make the rest of your life a response to the One who saved you.