Removed Far Away

Have you ever walked into a room or area and smelled a pungent oder that sickened you? Maybe it was rotten food left in the garbage and forgotten to be taken out. Maybe you walked outside and could tell something died leaving a foul smell behind. The decomposing smell of death is rancid.

We do not like our dirty rank trash piling up around us. We buy garbage cans. We take it to garbage containers. We send it off by way of waste management companies to waste facilities we used to call dumps. We want our foul discarded trash far away from us.

"As far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our transgressions from us." [Ps 103:12] NKJV

I have taught on this passage and even written on it in the past. I love to draw attention to the fact that on a globe if you start going in an eastern direction you can go east forever. The same is true if you go westward.   That is not the case if you go north or south. There is a North Pole and a South Pole. Once you pass those the compass changes even if you stay on the same course in the same direction.

That is not what caught my eye today. The word "removed" jumped off the page at me. God has removed our transgression. Not only did He remove it but He removed it far away. He could have kept it close. It could have served as. a constant reminder of how wicked we are. Those piles of sin could have heaped up condemnation on us. That is not what Jehovah did. He removed it as far as it could be removed. As far as the east is from the west. An immeasurable distance.

What a surprising discovery in my Bible meditation today. I have celebrated forgiveness and salvation. I have celebrated the distance God took our sins away. What I never thought about before is the simple truth that He removed those transgressions far from us. WOW. We don't have to be reminded of them everyday. We can rest in the truth that just like our trash, those sins are sent away. Unlike our garbage our sins have been removed so far away we can never find them again.

O I know Satan loves to remind us. He loves to condemn and accuse. Let us stand on the truth of what we read in scripture. Rest in that brothers and sisters. Our trespasses have been removed far away.