For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
Hebrews 8:10-12
Margaret Stringer surrendered her life to God to serve as a missionary when she was just twelve years old. She kept that promise. After she graduated from college, despite the dire warnings she received, she committed to going to the South Pacific to work among one of the cannibal tribes, and God greatly blessed her work there.
Many years later she was asked if she had a favorite memory from her time on the mission field. Stringer replied, “I have so many that it would be difficult to decide on one. One of those times was when the first cannibal, Bidaw, was saved. I cannot think about his first prayer without chills of joy. He prayed something like this: ‘God, I have killed and eaten people. I have stolen women. I cut a man’s chest open with an ax. I just don’t want You to think about that anymore.’”
While we may be tempted to think that our sins don’t compare to a cannibal’s, the truth is that every sin is an abomination in the eyes of a holy and righteous God. Every one of us are separated from God by our sins, and apart from His grace that chasm can never be crossed.
Yet in His mercy God not only saves us, but He wipes our record clean. This is our great hope—that God promises to remove our sins forever. “If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?” (Psalm 130:3).
