Sometimes I forget God.
When I deny Christ out of the fear of man, I am ignorant of His sad gaze. I close my heart to what is higher. I say no and choose myself instead, and as I walk away, I have forgotten God again.
Sin is a sick scream inside of me that stretches around my heart and snaps out of my mouth with every opportunity. Sin deafens me until I’m numb with excuses, numb with apathy, numb with comfort. Sin outside of me resonates with that within, and the new vice slips inside my heart to join the old. I’m convinced that this is the best; I am told the ancient lie that I will not surely die, and I believe.
But the lies suffocate me, they turn me blue from lack of innocence and I gasp for truth. Then I see Him again. Not all of Him . . . I glimpse a glowing white corner of His robe, and I feel the weight of His just hand on my guilty shoulder. Immediately my heart throbs and breaks the bonds of that horrid moment of forgetfulness, and I breathe to remember eternity and to grieve my unfaithfulness.
When Peter caught Christ’s sad gaze after he denied Him, he wept bitterly. Peter remembered. When I remember God, His Word whispers to me with such deep love and forgiveness that I wonder: how could I ever forget again? God has freed me from the power of sin; why would I pick up that chain and willingly begin to wrap it around my waist and over my shoulders? How could I ever commune with a holy God when I repeatedly choose separation?
Paul, an apostle of Christ, shares in Romans 7 his own incessant struggle with the captivity to sin in himself. “For the good that I would I do not,” Paul said. “But the evil which I would not, that I do.” Paul continues in Romans 8, rejoicing that there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death,” Paul said.
Praise God the righteousness required of me for fellowship is not my own, because I have none to offer. Instead, my hope is in Christ, who has redeemed me from the penalty of my unholiness. My hope is in the Holy Spirit, who guides me to victory over the lies sin offers. My hope is in God, who never forgets me.
