Sweet, sweet forgiveness

There are times, not enough, but there are times where I am just overwhelmed with the sinfulness of my sins.It can be heavy, looking back and looking in and thinking of ways that I have failed God. Sometimes it has been by doing the wrong thing, other times it has been by not doing what I should have done. I find the 'not doing what I should have dones' especially hard. To think about all the ways I should have loved God, loved my family, loved the people around me and to see how far I have fallen short, over and over again. What's particularly frustrating is that you can't go back - it's just there - and what's particularly sad is that if I did go back, I still wouldn't be able to get it completely right.I am so glad that God takes those sins seriously as well.I am thankful that I don't serve a God who can just overlook the things I have done, that I serve a God who demands better than me. I mean, how could I worship a God who thought my life was good enough?At the same time, I am so glad that I serve a God who is willing to truly forgive.This is almost unbelievably good stuff. That God can do what I can not and that is take all those failures and sins and rebellions and wipe them away and cast them aside and erase them and obliterate them and never ever remember them again. He's so much more holy than me which means if I am disgusted by my own sins, He sees them for what they are and hates them more than I ever could, yet He forgives. And this is not that pretend like it didn't happen stuff, this is not ignore it, this is a forgiveness that is based on punishment, that God can not hold my sins against me because He has already punished my sins in the person of Christ.God please help me believe that!I don't always feel righteous, but because of Christ's life I am counted righteous. I may not be able to go back and do anything about the sins I have committed in the past and no matter how hard I try I am going to fail more in the future, but God can do something that I cannot. At the judgment day, I can imagine many people, including myself, who would want to stand up and say this man is a failure, this man isn't worthy, woe to this man! but God isn't going to be one of them.I hang onto Paul's words with everything I have got, how about you?"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up us for all, how will he will not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us."Those words are enough to make a man dance, don't you think? God is for us. God did not spare His Son. God gave Him up for us. God will with him graciously give us all things. God has chosen us. God has justified us. Jesus died, was raised by God and is at the right hand of God right now, pleading on our behalf.My sins are worse than I think they are, and I think they are pretty bad.But salvation, forgiveness, it really is this good and it's my job to believe it!