A Clean Heart and a Fresh Start

Ben CerulloBy Ben Cerullo5 Minutes

As another year begins, there’s no better time to set your heart on a new beginning from God. One of the essential steps is to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your sins are forgiven and you are walking in the favor of God.

Look at the prophet Micah’s description of how God handles your sins:

Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity And passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:18-19 NASB).

When the Lord forgives your past, He never brings up those transgressions again. The Bible says He buries your sins in the deepest part of the ocean! As someone has suggested, God then hangs a “No Fishing” sign to keep you from resurrecting those things ever again.

And notice the word “all”:

You will cast ALL their sins into the depths of sea.” Not one of your sins is so terrible that it’s unforgiveable. ALL of your sins were included at the cross. And when you asked Jesus Christ to come into your life, you instantly became “the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:20).

David’s Fresh Start

Like Micah, King David declares that God “pardons ALL your iniquities” (Psalm 103:3). At one point in his life, David was under a cloud of shame after committing adultery and murder. Desperately needing a breakthrough of God’s grace and mercy, he cried out for forgiveness and restoration:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit (Psalm 51:10-12).

It’s clear that David doesn’t want to settle for anything less than full restoration. He knew he needed a fresh start, as The Message translation brings out here:

God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!

Friend, God heard David’s prayer—and He will hear yours as well. No matter what kind of pit you have dug for yourself, the Lord can forgive you and give you a fresh start.

Recovering Your Lost Joy

Even if your past was marked by sin and sadness, your Heavenly Father offers you a new beginning of joy and peace when you come to Him in complete honesty and surrender. As David describes, the transforming power of God’s grace is activated when we acknowledge our need:

How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit!…I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; and You forgave the guilt of my sin (Psalm 32:1-5 NASB).

As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12 NASB).

What wonderful news! Your past sins—ALL of them—have been covered by the blood of Jesus. Now it’s time for YOU to forget them and leave them behind. Let your turnaround begin!

Learn How You Can Have a Relationship with God