Some of you who know me know that my dad was a pastor. He did a lot of great things. He taught at San Francisco Theological Seminary, he pastored several churches, and after he retired, he did troubleshooting for churches that were having issues. But before all that, he was a Marine. I tell you this so you will better understand what happened.
My father suffered from bladder cancer for many years. For most of that time he was fairly pain free. That didn’t last at the end when he was in horrible pain. When Mom told me he had passed away, she confided in me that he had used some pretty salty language there at the end. Needless to say, she did not repeat what he said, but I figure he learned it in the Marine Corps or at his unchristian father’s knee. I only heard things from him like “good night, nurse,” etcetera.
I had worried that since he died in that mode that God would not be any too pleased with him and that he would be judged or that as he was in no position to ask for forgiveness. This came to mind recently because Tara Leigh Cobble of the Bible Recap pointed out that King David on his deathbed was advising Solomon on who to exact revenge on. She noted that David was known for being a man after God’s own heart, yet he was plotting death to his enemies. She made the point that he did not need to ask forgiveness after everything he did wrong in order to be made right with God because his sins were already covered by His faith in God.
That gave me more peace about my dad’s behavior and also my own. When something I’ve done wrong comes to mind, I worry about whether I’ve asked forgiveness for it so that I wind up asking for forgiveness for it multiple times. But Jesus died for all our sins past, present, and future. He has taken our hearts of stone and turned them into hearts of flesh because we trust in Him. He has adopted us into His family through faith in Him.
“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins… People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those in times past, for he was including them in what he would do in this present time.” Romans 3 24-26 NLT
This scriptural truth helps me to feel much more secure in my relationship with God.