Recycle Bin or Trash Bin

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riday is the scheduled pick-up day for trash in our neighborhood.  On Thursday evenings, everyone on the block obediently places trash receptacles on the curb so the trash truck can properly collect all the garbage produced by all the households since the last pickup day.  Most people put their trashcans on the curbside by early evening, but someone always forgets to put the trash out the night before pickup.  As the truck comes rumbling down the road, this person makes a mad dash for the curbside, barreling down the driveway in pajamas, robes, slippers, or whatever was handy, arriving at the curb just in time to hand the trash off to the attendant.  All of us at some point or another play this part; personally, I’ve only played it once—I don’t relish the thought of a repeat performance.

For those people who choose to recycle, they get to do double duty.  A second receptacle for recyclable materials must also be placed at the curbside to be picked up by a different company.  Fortunately, the pickup day is the same but the containers are not.  The recycle container is blue while the trash receptacle is brown.  Items intended to be disposed of and never seen again must be placed in the trash bin (that’s the brown one) while glass, plastics, paper products, etc. are put into the recycle bin (that’s the blue one). This means people must choose between what to throw away completely and what needs to be recycled again.

As Christians, we must make the same choices about the way we view God’s forgiveness of sin in our lives.  The Scriptures clearly teach that God forgives and forgets our sin.  Psalm 103:8-12 states, “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”

When it comes to forgiveness, God does not recycle!!  He does not bring up repeatedly the sins we have committed.  He places them into the garbage bin and disposes of them completely.  Does this mean God completely forgets that we sin on a daily basis?  The answer to that question is no.  However, when we ask for His forgiveness, He blots those transgressions out and remembers them no more.  Although it is true God is omniscient, meaning, all-knowing, He remembers to forget the sins He has forgiven.  He does not hold past sins against us, and this gives us full and unbridled access to our Heavenly Father.

Why is it then we insist on dumping our sin into the recycle bin?  Every time we come to the Lord in prayer, we drag up past sins, we remind God of all that we’ve done in the past twenty years, and ask for His forgiveness over and over again.  The problem is this:  in God’s economy, He has no idea what we are speaking of.  There is simply no record of our former sins on His books.

It would be the same as arguing with a credit card company that has no record of you owing them any money at all.  At some point the account was paid by someone else and no matter how much you argue and insist you owe them $10, they simply have no record of an outstanding balance in your name.  You can recycle that $10 any number of ways but the end result is the same, there simply is no outstanding balance in that account; it is paid in full. 

This is exactly the way it is with God.  He throws our sins away, He separates them as far as the east is from the west, He refuses to remember them and He certainly doesn’t want to discuss them.  What He wants is for us to remove them from the recycling bin and toss them into the garbage where He can be disposed of them.  When we finally see and grasp this perspective on God’s forgiveness, we are humbled and grow closer and more appreciative of all that God has done for us through His son, Jesus Christ. 

The real question for us today is this: are we using the recycle bin or the trash bin today as a commentary on the permanence of God’s forgiveness of our sin?  The choice is up to us and demonstrates what we really believe about the power of Christ’s sacrifice for sin!