SS Thoughts #14: Phantom Pain

(Adapted from Doug Batchelor’s Book: Amazing Facts 2)

Amputees often experience “phantom pain”.  For example they might have lost their leg, but their toes hurt or itch, even though they no longer have them! Doctors are helpless to treat these parts of the body that the patient says need attention. 

In the same way, there are persons who have confessed their sins and applied the blood of Jesus for cleansing. And Jesus does forgive. He casts those sins into the depths of the sea—Micah 7:19; and He remembers them no more—Jeremiah 31:34. But now WE continue to hold on to guilt for those sins, as in the well-known story of a man walking along a road carrying a heavy load on his head. When offered a ride he gets into the vehicle, but keeps the load on his head–thinking that it would be an imposition for the driver to give him a ride and give his load a ride too!!

None of us knows what the future holds, but Paul bids us in Hebrews 12:1,2 to “Lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”. Let us lay aside not only our sins but also the phantom weight of guilt that weighs us down. Let us try to look only to Jesus who has promised to return and take us home to live with Him on the earth made new. What an assurance.......