The east and the west

“as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12
If we are saved and belong to Christ and have had our sins forgiven – do we really know just how far our sins have been removed? It feels like just yesterday we sinned, because it was just yesterday. Or this morning. Or five minutes ago. But God promises if we confess our sins to Him, He will forgive us and cleanse us (1 John 1:9). Forgiveness means He will never demand justice for those sins, ever again. They are wiped clean from our account. We may still have to deal with the consequences of our sins, but as far as God is concerned, they have already been judged in Christ at the cross.
It’s interesting here that the Bible says our transgressions are removed from us ‘as far as the east is from the west’. If it had said ‘as far as the north is from the south’, then that would only be a finite distance – from the north pole to the south pole (about 20,000 km, or 12,400 miles). But if you keep going eastwards (or westwards) around the world, you can keep going forever; there is still more east (or west) of you.
God forgives our sin completely. We have a limited understanding of this, because our forgiveness is often incomplete – we may say we’ve forgiven somebody but the hurt is still there. But we can rest assured that when God forgives our sin, our relationship with Him is completely healed, just as if we’d never sinned. I hope that encourages you today.