Already Forgiven

One of my roles at my church is to coordinate a devotional ministry.  Member of the church write devotionals.  Each week we email them out to over 200 people.  In Advent, the devotionals are written for daily distribution.  I also compile them into a printed devotional book.

As I was assembling the booklet today and proofreading the texts, I was struck by something.  One of the writers, who was writing a devotional for the last week of Advent, wrote a prayer that begins, "We ask once again for you to have patience with us.  We have been ignoring your messages this season.  We've tried, but we have allowed the busyness and worldly distractions to draw us away form the light."  (Hat-tip to Chyrl Budd).  She wrote this sometime in November as a prayer of confession for close to Christmas.  She knows that we will try, and that we will not fulling reach our potential in Advent, and that we will need forgiveness.

God knew we would need forgiveness, too.  Two thousand years before our birth, our sins were forgiven.  How wonderful is that?