The God Who Delights to Pardon

There is a difference between a God who forgives because he must and a God who forgives because he wants to, and Micah insists it is the second one we are dealing with. Who is a God like you, he asks, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot, and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

That word delights should stop you. God is not forgiving you through gritted teeth, tolerating you while he waits for you to shape up. He takes pleasure in showing mercy. Steadfast love is not a duty he performs reluctantly; it is what he is glad to do. For a man used to imagining God's forgiveness as grudging, this recolors everything.

And look what he does with the sin itself. He treads it underfoot and throws it into the depths of the sea. Corrie ten Boom once added that he posts a sign there that says no fishing. You do not get to keep dredging up what he has drowned. He is not saving it as ammunition. He sank it on purpose, because pardoning you is a thing he delights to do.

Father, I have imagined your mercy as reluctant. Thank you that you delight to forgive. Help me leave in the sea what you have thrown there.