For this week’s memory verse, I’ve chosen a passage that has really been on my heart over the past several days. Though it’s definitely not one of the most popular verses in the New Testament, or even one most of us our familiar with, I believe it beautifully encapsulates the feelings of self-doubt and insecurity most of us face from time to time, as well as the best way to overcome these obstacles:

“For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.”

               -1 John 3:20

What Christian can deny ever feeling burdened with the guilt of passed sins? How many times do we dwell on what God has forgotten, and allow yesterday’s failures to obscure today’s blessings? Yet John reminds us in this passage of his first epistle that God is greater than whatever doubts we may be facing and, in His omniscience, already knows of our tainted past. When God chooses to forgive a person it’s not because the fact of their past sins momentarily evades His memory; He simply chooses not to hold them against that person any longer.

Whatever doubts you may be struggling with, let this Scripture remind you today that, if you have been washed in the atoning blood of Christ, a guilty conscience should be one of the furthest things from your soul. As John continued, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” (1 John 3:21) In other words, though we may not always feel forgiven, we need to be confident in it just the same so that we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace.” (Hebrews 4:16) When we find ourselves standing in the light of God’s amazing love and mercy, the shadow of yesterday’s sins will have to flee.