Skip to content ↓

Our Forgetful God

There are some things I just can’t forget. There are some wrongs done to me that I cannot erase from my mind. I try, I pray. I don’t want to remember them. I don’t want them to remain in my memory or to come back to my mind. But somehow I can’t forget them. Somehow, sooner or later, they come back, flooding me once again with all of those thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

There are some things God just can’t remember. Perhaps better said, there are some things God just won’t remember. There are some wrongs done to him that he will not bring back to his mind. He doesn’t want to remember them. He doesn’t need to remember them. They never come back, flooding him with all of those thoughts, feelings, and emotions. They are erased from his mind and gone forever.

“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25). “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12). “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more” (Hebrews 10:17).

This is a wonder to me, a wonder of wonders, that God should say that He will do what in some sense He cannot do

Looking at all of this evidence, Charles Spurgeon says, “This is a wonder to me, a wonder of wonders, that God should say that He will do what in some sense He cannot do—that He should use speech which includes impossibility, and yet that it should be strictly true as He intends it.” He intends for us to know that “His pardon is so true and deep that it amounts to an absolute oblivion, a total forgetting of all the wrong-doing of the pardoned ones.” God puts aside our sin so thoroughly, so utterly, so completely that it is like he has forgotten it altogether. He has so dealt with our sin that he does not ponder it, he does not ruminate over it, he does not allow it to change the way he thinks of us, he does not look for further justification to make right our wrong-doings. “The Great Father’s heart is not brooding over the injuries we have done. His infinite mind is not revolving within itself the tale of our iniquities. Ah, no. If we have fled to Christ for refuge, the Lord remembers our sin no more. The record of our iniquity is taken away, and the judge has no judicial memory of it.”

The very things I cannot forget are the very things God will not remember.

Image credit: Shutterstock


  • Thriving Marriage

    Thriving Marriage

    I have often wondered about the best time to write a book about marriage. When a couple is young, there is so much about marriage they have not yet experienced. They can still impart wisdom and teach lessons, of course, but there is so much of marriage that remains unknown to them. Yet when a…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 11)

    A La Carte: Falling out of repentance / Tattoos as confession / The Epstein List and secret sins / Teaching generosity / Lessons from a former youth pastor / Bedbugs in the bowels of the city.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 10)

    A La Carte: Questions for a maturing marriage / The lesbian seagulls that weren’t / But mommy, why? / A time to be tired / The modern rise of Stoicism / and more.

  • The Stranger

    The Stranger: A Short Film For You

    Based on a true story and inspired by the truth that character comes before competence, “The Stranger” is an honest, light-hearted and meaningful picture of what it means to truly serve others.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 9)

    A La Carte: The singer who changed the course of my life / Stay on the line / Incompatible thick communities / Lulla-Bible? / The solution is not megachurch / Who were the Anabaptists? / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 8)

    A La Carte: 15 ways to discern false teaching / The queering of history / The best part of my day / 6 kinds of hearers of God’s Word / Countering Muslim attacks on the Bible / Kindle deals / and more.