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.