Forgiveness is:

·        Going to sleep at night without guilt.

·        Being released from the debt your sin made between you and God.

·        Rebuking the old memories that taunt you about failures from the past.

·        A paralyzed man hearing he is forgiven and realizing forgiveness is more important than walking.

·        Having the old sin habits sanded out of your soul and new channels of grace forming.

·        Seeing the world differently because you no longer think everyone is better than you.

·        Feeling God’s embrace.

·        God deciding to let you be born even though he knows you will sin, and deciding to pay for your failures anyway so you could have eternal life.

·        Closing your eyes for the last time on earth and opening them for the first time in heaven.

·        Being set free from shame that twists your behavior into something unnatural.

·        Hearing God’s laughter.

·        A dying reprobate asking Jesus for mercy and hearing “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

·        Extending grace to people who hurt you, because you had grace extended to you.

·        Feeling clean in the presence of God.

·        A bath of grace.

·        No longer bracing against God for fear He will torment you with your stupidity; but instead finding no condemnation in His eyes.

·        The number one hater of Christians being turned into the number one missionary for Jesus.

·        Knowing your sins have been hurled past the borders of the universe.

·        A lifting of depression because you know the old heaviness of shame has left.

·        Better than paying off all your debt.

·        Hearing the Judge declaring you “guilty” and then telling you that His son will pay your fine.

·        A fresh, cool breeze blowing grace over your soul wounds.

·        Knowing God’s power to forgive is greater than the power of the evil that controls you.

·        Jesus forgiving the soldiers who beat him, the Governor who sentenced him to die, and the religious leaders who falsely accused him.

·        God telling you that you have nothing to prove to him.

·        The promise that God will cover you with layer after layer of grace, so your sin is buried under the weight of His love.

·        Good News.

·        Jesus hunting Peter down on the day of his resurrection to tell him his betrayal is forgiven.

·        Feeling grateful to the One who forgives you.

·        Jesus taking your burden of the past from you and putting it on Himself.

·        Your soul dancing because God has done for you what you could not do for yourself.

·        Jesus looking into the eyes of woman barely clothed, fresh from a bed of adultery and telling her, “Neither do I condemn you.  God and sin no more.”

·        Feeling a deep peace because your soul no longer wars within itself.

·        Agreeing with God about the truth of your life, the mess you’ve made of it, and how much you need Him. 

·        Being set free from being the victim.

·        Not bought with trinkets you bring to God hoping to buy it, but a gift extended to you.

·        A forever change in your life.

·        Jesus summoning his last bit of strength to say “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

·        What you need.