I forgot about that

One thing I enjoy doing whenever I get the chance is going to the zoo and seeing all the animals, especially the gorillas, which are my favorite. I really enjoy watching them and how they just kind of stare at you as if they are waiting for you to do something for them. One interesting thing about gorillas that I just learned recently is that they have terrible short-term memories, which is probably why I like them so much. You can ask me about anything I thought about when I was five years old, but don’t ask me what I did last week.

The thing about memories is that they fade as we get older and we begin not to remember things. In the Bible, we even see in Hebrews 8:12 and 10:17 that God will forget our sins and remember them no more. This idea got me wondering, though: How can God, who knows everything, forget something? Also, if God can forget my sins, does that also mean that He might forget other things? Well, to answer these questions, let’s take a look at Gods word and use the truth in it to flush out these thoughts and see what His word says about it. 

We read in Isaiah chapter 43:25; “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins. And then in Jeremiah Chapter 31:34 we see; “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

The two verses in Hebrews are taken from Isaiah 43 and Jeremiah 31, which we just read, and as we see, it does say that God will not remember the sins that He has forgiven. This word in the original Hebrew does mean to recall something or to bring to mind, but not in the way that we typically use the word "remember." What God is actually saying here is that He loves us so much that He not only forgives us because He wants to, but that He will never remind you of that sin again. That means that God doesn’t forget things as we do; it means that He has actually removed that sin from you as if it were never there, and because He has forgiven you, He never brings it up again.

Now we might say, yeah, that’s great, but why am I reminded constantly of things that I’ve done? Well, the reason is that we as believers have an enemy, the devil, who wants us to think that God is still holding those sins over our heads. This is why it’s so important for us to know the truth, like psalm 103:12 that says God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west—east and west never meet up—so those sins are gone forever. Because our memories are finite, we need to know that Gods word is infinite and never changes, so we have to memorize it and trust what He says, knowing that He will never forget us because He loves us that much. 

"You have a Father in Heaven who will never disappoint you, never forsake you, and never forget you. You are always on His mind” -Greg Laurie

If you are here today and you don’t know Jesus, as you see, He wants to forgive you, But He will never force a relationship with you. In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Let today be the day you open that door and a day you will always remember.