The Delete Key
Possibly my favorite key on the keyboard is the delete key. I use it often. Even now, as I look at my keyboard, the word “Delete” is almost completely worn off of the key. When I type, I make lots of mistakes. Wrong letters, inverted letters, misspelled words with the dreaded red line under them. I’ve had them all in this very paragraph.
When it happens, the Delete key comes to the rescue. I get rid of the mistake. Then, I can start again and try to get it correct. I get a re-do. I get a mulligan for the golfers among us. I can try again.
Some of you are too young to remember, but for the rest of us, remember the typewriter? Fixing mistakes on the typewriter was a much bigger deal. You either had to use White Out to paint over the mistake with that special paint and tiny paint brush and try to type it again. Or, if the document was important enough and had to be correct, you had to retype the entire page. Mistakes on a typewriter were a real headache.
We need a Delete button in life, don’t we. Oh, wait…we have one. In Christ, our past can be deleted, and we can try again. Sometimes we try to just paint over the mistakes and pretend like they are not there, but we can never completely cover them. It is evident we messed up. But, in Christ, we can have those mistakes deleted, forgiven, washed clean.
Notice what 1 John 3:5 says: “You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is no sin in him” (CSB). The “he” here is Jesus Christ. He came and lived the sinless life (there is no sin in him), died, and rose again so that our sins could be taken away. When He takes away our sin, it is gone. Forgiven. Erased. Deleted.
Micah 7:19: “He will again have compassion on us; he will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (CSB). When we come to God in faith and turn away from our sin and ask for His forgiveness, those sins are removed. They are gone. Micah uses the illustration of the sins being thrown into the deepest part of the sea to never be retrieved again.
For those wondering if the mercy of God is available today for the most recent sins that we committed yesterday, and even today, hear this great truth about God: “Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:22-23, CSB). The mercies of God are never ending.
Every morning, the fullness of God’s mercy is renewed again. You cannot exhaust it. You cannot out sin it. God’s mercy is greater than your sin. Turn to His mercy.
What in your life needs to be deleted?