On the day Jesus died, God fired all the bookkeepers in heaven and assigned them happier jobs.
John says in I John 2:2, that Jesus died for our sins and the sins of the whole world.
And Paul says, "God made you alive with Christ. He FORGAVE ALL our sins, having canceled the written code...He took it away, nailing it to the cross." Colossians 2:13-14
This means there is now -
NO RECORD OF WRONG
Eternally FORGIVEN
If there be any doubt about this, Jesus himself said, "Father FORGIVE them," as he died.
Now when we think about the judgment of God at the end of the age,
when God destroys all sin and evil,
He can do so without destroying us.
Should we choose to believe this Good News, we can walk through life free of guilt and shame.
And because we are fully and eternally FORGIVEN, we can now FORGIVE others.
This is also Good News.
We have all been hurt by others - sometimes grievously.
I know from personal experience that FORGIVING our enemy, especially a beloved enemy is not easily done.
To FORGIVE something serious is to experience a kind of death.
God bore in His flesh the pain and death of FORGIVING a world.
We experience our own little deaths by following him in this work.
And it is work - and may take time.
But it is work that has to be done and is well worth the doing.
If my wife and I didn't regularly FORGIVE each other, our marriage would be unbearable.
If I don't FORGIVE others, my life becomes unbearable.
When we are able to FORGIVE, we set others free and find that we too, are set free.
After all, withholding FORGIVENESS is like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.
When God, in Christ, FORGAVE the world, He did it not only for us, but also for Himself.
He lives with a free and generous Spirit toward us.
Following Him empowers us to live with a free and generous spirit toward others too.
Jesus tells us to FORGIVE as we have been FORGIVEN.
Again, he's looking out for us.