“For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

Here is an amazing statement about those who are abiding by the new covenant. As far as iniquities are concerned they will be no different than those outside of the covenant. All men sin and fail to reach the perfection God requires. The difference is how God views their iniquities. This promise of mercy is made to those in covenant relationship with God. Remember what God said about those who would not keep His covenant in the old days? He would not be concerned about them. They would have to answer for their own iniquities. But those in relationship with God through His covenant receive mercy.

That mercy extends to forgiveness of iniquity. That mercy extends to God forgetting those iniquities. Those who have God living inside them are made righteous with the righteousness of God. In baptism, the circumcision of the heart, those sins are removed just as the foreskin was removed in the physical circumcision of the Jews. That cleansing of iniquities, the washing in the blood of the Lamb, is all apart of dying to self and allowing God to move in to control.

Task for Today: Want mercy? Want your sins forgotten by God? Destroy the old man of sin by dying to him and take on the new man by letting God inside and giving Him control. Have your heart circumcised that the old man of sin may be severed.