1. God Loves You More than He Hates Sin
God is holy. This means He is 100% set apart from evil (which includes sin).
1 John 1:5 (NLT): “This is the message we heard from and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.”
1 Samuel 2:2 (NLT): “No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.”
As a result, God hates evil:
Psalm 5:5 (NLT): “Therefore, the proud may not stand in your presence, for you hate all who do evil.”
Psalm 11:5 (NLT): “The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked. He hates those who love violence.”
However, this doesn’t mean that:
God hates you
He doesn’t want anything to do with you
He takes pleasure in watching you suffer
You can sin too greatly (or too much) and lose God’s love, favor, or forgiveness
After the Fall in the Garden of Eden, when sin entered the world, God could’ve left us to our own devices.
After all, Adam and Eve had sinned in a big way. They basically thumbed their noses at God, and everything He had given them, because they decided that they wanted to be like God rather than trust Him.
God, who cannot co-exist with sin, could have chosen to wash His hands of His creation right there. To be totally okay with the now fractured relationship.
But - God is love (1 John 4:16). And in addition to being love, He loves us more than we could ever imagine.
So much so, that (as 1 John 4:9-10 NLT says): “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”
There’s also Romans 5:6-8 (MSG): “Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.”
God might hate sin - but His love for you is bigger and more important.
2. Jesus’ Sacrifice on the Cross Covers ALL Sin
Jesus died on the cross, in our place, for our sins. ALL of our sins.
Ephesians 1: 7 (NLT): “He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins.”
Notice that it simply says “our sins.” There are zero stipulations as to what kind or severity of sin.
No sin is “too big” for God to forgive. In fact, He longs for us to be free from our sin. So much so, He sent Jesus (His one and only Son) to be born into human history and die on the cross.
Acts 2:38 (MSG): Peter said, “Change your life. Turn to God and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, so your sins are forgiven. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is targeted to you and your children, but also to all who are far away—whomever, in fact, our Master God invites.”
As long as we confess our sins to God, and truly seek repentance (which means we desire to turn away from our sin), God completely and utterly forgives our sin.
Psalm 103:12 (NLT): “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.”
Psalm 32:5 (MSG): Then I let it all out; I said, “I’ll come clean about my failures to God.” Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared. Then I let it all out; I said, “I’ll come clean about my failures to God.” Suddenly the pressure was gone—my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.
Micah 7:18-10 (MSG):
Where is the god who can compare with you—wiping the slate clean of guilt,
Turning a blind eye, a deaf ear,
to the past sins of your purged and precious people?
You don’t nurse your anger and don’t stay angry long,
for mercy is your specialty. That’s what you love most.
And compassion is on its way to us. You’ll stamp out our wrongdoing.
You’ll sink our sins to the bottom of the ocean.
You’ll stay true to your word to Father Jacob
and continue the compassion you showed Grandfather Abraham—
Everything you promised our ancestors
from a long time ago.Not only does God forgive ALL sin, He forgives it completely.
Through the blood of Jesus on the cross, we are made righteous in God’s eyes. Which means our sin is nowhere in sight; no longer an impediment to our relationship with God.
And that brings God a lot of joy because He loves us and, first and foremost, wants a real relationship with us.