November 14 | Bible in a Year: Lamentations 3–5; Hebrews 10:19–39

Sins Remembered No More

I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. Jeremiah 31:34

READ Jeremiah 31:27–34

I never saw the ice. But I felt it. The back end of the van I was driving—my grandfather’s—spun out. One swerve, two, three—and I was airborne, flying off a fifteen-foot embankment. I remember thinking, This would be awesome if I wasn’t going to die. A moment later, the van crunched into the steep slope and rolled to the bottom. I crawled out of the crushed vehicle, unscathed.

The van was utterly ruined that December morning in 1992. God had spared me. But what about my grandfather? What would he say? In fact, he never said a single word about the van. Not one. There was no scolding, no repayment plan, nothing. Just forgiveness. And a grandfather’s smile that I was okay.

My grandfather’s grace reminds me of God’s grace in Jeremiah 31. There, despite their tremendous failings, God promises a restored relationship with His people, saying, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (v. 34).

I’m sure my grandfather never forgot that I’d wrecked his van. But he acted just like God does here, not remembering it, not shaming me, not making me work to repay the debt I rightfully owed. Just as God says He’ll do, my grandfather chose to remember it no more, as if the destructive thing I’d done had never happened.

By Adam R. Holz

How should God’s forgiveness affect how you see your failures? How can you show others grace?

Father, thank You for Your forgiveness. When I cling to my shame, help me to recall that, in Christ, You remember my sins no more.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT

In today’s passage (Jeremiah 31:27–34), Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, delivered a message from God to the Southern Kingdom of Judah concerning the new covenant that He would make with His people (ch. 31). It’s interesting to note that in both times of misfortune and fortune, God watches over believers in Jesus in the same way: “Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down . . . I will watch over them to build and to plant” (v. 28). Watch/watched is translated from the same Hebrew word (shaqad ). It has the implication of keeping guard over something; to be on the lookout.