How far is the east from the west?
If you measure the distance between the east coast and the west coast in the United States, the distance is about 2800 miles. That’s a lot of miles.
I have a friend who once ran from New York to San Francisco – that’s 3,140 miles! His name is Christian Griffith and he had a reason… he wanted to raise awareness and raise money to help prevent child abuse and help children who have suffered abuse. An incredibly worthy cause.
It took him 5 months of running, the equivalent of almost 120 marathons in less than 160 days, to do it! When he crossed the finish line on August 22, 2018, he had accomplished something very few people have ever done.
Many people have flown across the country. A flight from the east coast to the west coast only takes 5 or 6 hours.
A lot of people have driven from coast to coast. If you were to drive from one end of the country to the other without stopping, that would take you about 40 hours.
But only a few have ever made the trip by foot.
Why? Because of the distance. It’s a long way from the east coast to the west coast.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghGz4wnuqXE[/embedyt]Psalm 103
Why are we even talking about this? It’s interesting, in Psalm 103 David is praying to God and listen to what he says…
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west. – Psalm 103.11-12
As far as the east is from the west – that’s how far God has removed your sins from you.
That’s farther than the east coast is from the west coast.
It’s even farther than a trip halfway around the world.
It’s even farther than the distance between the farthest point east in our universe to the farthest point west in our universe.
God loves you so much that he has put that much distance between you and your sin. Between you and what separates you from Him.
Why?
Because He loves you. Because of His unfailing love for you.
Seeing You Apart from Your Sin
He’s able to see you and to love you apart from your sin.
He’s able to see you as His son, His daughter. He created you in his image. And when he looks at you His heart is filled with great joy. And he wants you to know that when you put your trust in Him He forgives you of all your sin.
Not only does God want you to know that he has forgiven you, but he wants you to offer His forgiveness to others. When one of Jesus’ first disciples came to him and asked him to teach them how to pray, Jesus taught them to pray this way…
…and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
– Matthew 6.12
God wants you to see people and love people apart from their sin.
He wants you to see people, even those who have hurt you, even those you would consider your enemies, as sons and daughter of God.
He wants you to remember that they, too, were created by God in the image of God.
This isn’t easy. This takes time.
But what if you put as much distance between people and their sin and God has put between you and your sin?
What if you could separate people from their sin and see them apart from the things they’ve done to hurt you?
That right there, that activity of separating people from their sin, of seeing people as people created in the image of God for the glory of God apart from their sin… that’s the activity of forgiveness.
As as we do this for others, here’s the promise… God does this for us!
As we forgive, we are forgiven. And the more we’re forgiven, the more we forgive. It’s this beautiful cycle of forgiving and being forgiven, of being forgiven and forgiving.
You don’t have to run 3000 miles to forgive someone, but putting that much distance between them and their sin, well… that’s what God has done for you.
Perhaps we are never more like Jesus than when we forgive.
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