What God Wants You to Know: God Forgives You as You Are

Last week, I wrote about God’s love for us, today we will discuss God’s unconditional forgiveness. God invites us into his presence as we are and offers forgiveness when we repent of our sins.

I have struggled with the concept of God’s forgiveness. I couldn’t understand how he could forgive some of the things I have done. Especially those sins that I’ve committed more than once. There was a time when I would pretend that God hadn’t seen what I did.

I figured if I didn’t say anything about it, he wouldn’t know. I would distance myself from God as I berated myself for what I had done. Then, when enough time had passed, I would resume my relationship with God.

Keep in mind, God hadn’t left me for what I had done; he was waiting, watching, and loving me while I was pretending he wasn’t around. Eventually, when I had grown significantly in my faith, I embraced God’s presence. I kept the communication line open as I worked through my guilt of sinning yet again.

Imagine someone lying in a hospital bed, running a high fever. Their body is being ravaged by a hidden infection. On the surface, things might not look too serious—but underneath, bacteria are multiplying, poisoning the bloodstream, threatening life itself. Now imagine the doctor arrives with a course of powerful antibiotics. These aren’t just bandages. They don’t just numb the pain or lower the fever temporarily. They go deep, targeting the infection at its root, attacking the bacteria, cleansing the body from the inside out.

But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7

That’s what God’s forgiveness does. It doesn’t just treat the symptoms of sin. It’s not a spiritual Tylenol. It’s a radical, cleansing grace that reaches into the deepest places of our lives—places where guilt and shame have been festering—and brings healing. Forgiveness doesn’t just mean you’re “not in trouble” anymore—it means God is restoring your soul, purifying your heart, and rewriting your story. Just as antibiotics cleanse the bloodstream, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. He doesn’t just want to patch us up. He wants to make us whole.

God’s forgiveness is unconditional and complete. Once we are forgiven, we no longer need to carry the guilt of our sins. The psalmist writes, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.” (Psalm 103:12)

Eastward travel and westward travel continue without end. Keep going east, and you will return to where you started, then continue east. You never meet west. God chose east/west to show that the justification we have through Christ puts an endless distance between us and our sins. I knew of a woman who had an abortion, then became a Christian, and asked her friend what God would say to her about the abortion when she got to heaven. Her very wise friend suggested that God would say, “What abortion?” We remember our sins, but God doesn’t because his forgiveness is so complete.

While we can come to God filthy in our sinful lives, He will accept us. But before he forgives us, we must repent of our sin. I’m reminded of David. After he was confronted about his sin with Bathsheba. He came to God in humility, understanding what God required: “You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” Psalm 51: 16-17

Sometimes it seems easier if we did something to earn God’s forgiveness. I think David would have preferred to offer sacrifices. He had many animals to offer on the altar; it would not have been as great a sacrifice as coming to God in humility. God doesn’t want us to “fix” our lives through actions, but through our trust and faith in him. He’ll fix our lives, and we will be new creations.

Jesus tells us in Matthew, “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.” Matt. 6:14. I think the hardest part of accepting God’s forgiveness is knowing that now you are required to forgive others. When someone uses you, hurts you, or even worse, hurts your children, forgiving can be the last thing you want to do. Revenge seems to come to mind first.

But when you don’t forgive someone, you risk not being forgiven by God, and can expect to live an unpleasant life, with the hurt constantly in your thoughts. I remember reading somewhere that not forgiving those who have hurt you is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. You think unforgiveness will punish the other person, show them that you look on them with disdain. But often, they don’t even know that you are angry with them. Sometimes they don’t even think they did anything wrong.

Dr. Everett Worthington is a clinical psychologist who’s spent decades researching forgiveness. He’s written books, developed models, and led studies on multiple continents. But his story didn’t begin in a lab—it began in a moment of unimaginable pain.

In 1996, Everett’s mother was brutally murdered during a home invasion. The news shattered him. This wasn’t a theory anymore. This was real. The very thing he had spent years teaching others—could he live it himself? In the days that followed, he wrestled. He cried. He raged. But ultimately, Everett chose to do what he had taught others to do: he forgave.

He forgave his mother’s killer. And out of that crucible of suffering, something powerful was born. Everett refined a process called the REACH model—a 5-step path to real, lasting forgiveness:

                  Recall the hurt honestly.

                  Empathize with the offender.

                  Altruistically forgive, offering grace as a gift.

                  Commit to forgiveness.

                  Hold on when the pain returns.

You do not need to wait for the other person to admit their wrong or apologize; you can forgive them even if they never admit it.

The hardest person that I have had to forgive is myself. I set ridiculously high standards for myself and find it difficult to let go when I mess up. My goal, as irrational as it is, is to be perfect. Never make a mistake. Handle every situation in my life the correct way. And that includes my role as pastor; even though God doesn’t expect me to get it right every time, I do.

I am sure you are familiar with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. While it helps, the OTHER Serenity Prayer is the one I relate to most.

It goes like this: God, grant me the serenity to stop beating myself up for not doing things perfectly, the courage to forgive myself because I’m working on doing better, and the wisdom to know that you already love me just the way I am. Amen. (Mindful Christianity)

The grace and mercy of God’s forgiveness wash us clean of our guilt, purify us from our sin, and make us new creations. It gives us the confidence to get up tomorrow morning and start anew, our sins forgiven and forgotten. For which I am eternally grateful.