He wants to forgive us

In our Old Testament reading today from the One Year Bible, which is Leviticus 25:47 - 27:13, we read about God teaching us how much He is willing to forgive our sins.

We tend to think of the OT God as being one of wrath and judgment, and that love and grace and forgiveness came with the New Testament and Jesus's sacrifice. But when you carefully read the OT, you find it full of God's forgiveness. He is constantly pursuing the faithless Israelites as they turn away from Him again and again.

And this gives us hope today. Because even with all that we know about God and His love for us, we still fall into sin so easily. We are short tempered with our family. We see things that others have and wish we had them instead. We fall easily into sexual temptation. We steal from work, even if it's only stealing time by not doing our jobs as well as we can.

Fortunately our God knows that we need His help in trying to live a holy life. As long as we keep trying, He will keep helping us. We can only fail by giving up. Otherwise, keep picking yourself up and carrying on. He'll be there, time and again, to help you keep going.

God, thank You for your forgiveness.