The Permanent Record

It was 1993 and the University of Michigan was in the finals of the NCAA men's basketball tournament.  Eleven seconds to go, Michigan is down by two.  Chris Webber has the ball and is bringing it down court, and then it happens.  Chris Webber calks for a time out when his team is out.  It;s a technical foul and that's it.  The game becomes out of reach.

It was a mistake and mistakes happen.  Chris Webber went on to have a remarkable NBA career scoring over 17,000 points and 5 all star appearances, but people still remember the time out.  After retirement when he was joining the broadcasters on Inside the NBA he was still being teased about his ill fated time out.  Sometimes we mess up big and publicly.  The football player runs the wrong way; or the goalie puts one in his own.  Usually it isn't as big or as publicly, but we all mess up.  And sometimes the mess up is what we are known for.

In life we have high points and low points and people remember.  Alfred Nobel was the creator of dynamite.  When his brother died, a newspaper mistakenly reported that it was Alfred that died and described him as a merchant of destruction.  Alfred was disturbed that he would be remembered that way and so he used the vast wealth to create prizes for Peace and achievements in Science, Medicine and Literature.    And it worked.  Today when people heat the name Alfred Nobel they are much more likely to think Nobel Prize than Dynamite.  However, most of us don't have vast fortunes to use in this way.

For most of us we have to rely on forgiveness.  We need people to accept our mistakes and look past them.  We need to be forgiven by others, we need to be forgiven by God and we need to forgive ourselves.

Watch this clip from Pastor Sparks.

We all need forgiveness and we all need to be forgiven.  We need to be forgiven by other people and we need to be forgiven by God.  In the Gospel of Mark it says 

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins

So forgiveness needs to start with us.  We need to forgive others so that our heart is right with God.  And there is the crux of it.  Unforgiveness is bad for us.  It hardens our heart and separates us from God whose forgiveness we all need.  So while our mistakes might forever be remembered in the minds of people it will be forever removed from God's permanent record.