I woke up this morning feeling a little guilty over some mistakes I made recently. However, the strangest thing happened as soon as I began to rehearse my sins in my head. I sensed God's presence at war with my thought process. You see, YEARS of church has conditioned me to believe that God is angry with the sinner and ready to punish EVERY evil deed that I perform in this temple that He has given me. Surely, I should beat myself up and focus on my wrongdoings in order to show God how sorry I am and possibly attract a morsel of His mercy to be extended towards me in the form of forgiveness.  But what God revealed to me this morning literally KNOCKED ME UNCONSCIOUS!


He said, "I'm not conscious of your sin and neither should you be!" <--- WOW!


Hebrews 10:16 declares "... their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." In other words, God has been knocked unconscious regarding my sins and He wants me to do the same! Earlier, in that same passage it talks about how Jesus' blood and sacrifice are so complete that we no longer have to slay animals as a reminder and atonement for our sins. It also mentions the lack of guilt that worshippers are now privy to because of Jesus' death and resurrection.

When a surgeon needs to operate on you, he/she basically knocks you unconscious to avoid you feeling the pain of the procedure. I have been so sleepy before that I've actually slept through violent storms and was virtually unconscious that they ever occurred. In both examples, the pain of the surgery and the violence of the storm were realities; but they were limited in their effect on the recipient's quality of life because of the lack of consciousness of their existence.

When God says He doesn't want us conscious of our sins, He's not saying that they are NOT realities.  Rather, He is illustrating the full extent of His Grace as it is expressed in Jesus Christ.  Simply stated, He wants us to be Grace Conscious instead of Sin Conscious. Jesus literally traded places with us to satisfy the debt owed to God because of our sins. THAT is Grace. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that "...He who knew no sin (unconscious) became sin so we could become the righteousness of God."

God is not an idiot! He knows that we have sinned and we will sin again. That's one of the reasons He sent Jesus to pay for our sins. However, we don't fix our sins or "stop sinning" by focusing on them. The only way to get out of our mess is to focus on Him! 1 John 3:2 says "...when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we will see Him as He is." One of the implications here is that we become like what we see; and we see what we are made conscious of (or what is revealed). The more conscious of something you are the greater reality it becomes in your life! The more you focus on your faults, the more difficult they are to overcome. But, the more you focus on His grace, the more of a reality forgiveness and deliverance become. We must choose to focus more on the solution (God's grace) than we do on the problem (our sins).

In Genesis, God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge (consciousness) of good and evil. He never intended for them to be sin conscious. When they hid from Him because of their nakedness, He asked them "Who told you that you were naked?" It wasn't their sin that separated them from God, it was their consciousness of their sin that did it. The bible declares that God still came walking through the garden, asking "where are you?" as an indication of His desire to still be with them, even after they sinned; but THEY hid from Him! Despite them having uninterrupted fellowship with God and a garden full of everything they could ever need or want, they allowed the serpent to trick them into giving it all up by entering into a consciousness of sin. Today, that same devil is still tricking us into forfeiting our garden of provision and our peace with God that was bought by Christ. His (the devil) constant accusation when we fall short is intended to keep us sin conscious rather than grace conscious. It is a slap in Jesus' face to focus on our sin when His blood is far more potent than ANY sin we can commit.

ANTicipate the enemy trying his best to use guilt and shame as a tool to trap you and keep you repeating the same sins. Now, allow the blood of Jesus to knock you unconscious to your failures and awaken you to His forgiveness and His power to change your life!