^{Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash}

You throw things that don’t serve you to empty spaces for freedom. But why do you find it challenging to forget? Why do you often forget your sin doesn’t define you?

While God is an ever-forgiving God who constantly forgives, people can’t help but feel guilt and hopelessness overcome them whenever they sin.

Perhaps it’s a natural reaction. After all, sin is committing a mistake and veering off the customary, expected route. To sin is to practice what shouldn’t be, which is why guilt is typically the automatic response.

While this discomfort may encourage people to change and avoid the same path, it can also hinder other’s path to growth. Instead of using it as a force to redirect them in the right direction, others allow it to swallow them whole and impede their development. They get so overwhelmed by their mistakes that they end up allowing them to define them. They get stumped by their shortcomings, and they believe this will become part of them. However, that shouldn’t be the image painted.

Although Ever-Present, Your Sin Doesn’t Define You

Darlene Gibson’s book about the power of faith and determination highlights the reality that people are sinful. Readers are reminded that by claiming they’re without sin, they’re merely deceiving themselves. The world is filled with temptations, and people can easily be led astray, so it might be nearly impossible to meet someone who’s ultimately pure.

You might think you’re the kindest to others and religiously follow the rules and norms. But this doesn’t automatically make you sinless. Irreverence can be elusive. You can stick to the norm all your life, choose the best options provided, and listen to His word. But one way or another, it’s going to happen.

Regardless of how much you try to avoid falling victim to it, it can exist even without you noticing. It’s bound to happen. But when it does, it’s crucial to remember your sin doesn’t define you.

Being sinful doesn’t necessarily make you evil; it makes you human.

To recognize and acknowledge the sin in oneself is equivalent to being ready for repentance and change. This is the first step you must take to be forgiven. If you welcome humility and confess your humaneness and the existence of sin in your life, you’re allowing God to enter and purify it. This is why it’s pivotal to forget the past and believe that your sin doesn’t define you. This way, it becomes easier to embrace your sinful nature and confess your mistakes.

This sense of humility brings people closer to living a life of repentance.

When It’s Not Sin, What Defines You?

Your mistakes might make up who you are. It molds you into a better version of yourself, becoming a piece of who you need to lose to improve. But it must only serve as a memory, a bittersweet remembrance of who you had been. It shouldn’t be what defines you, weighing you down whenever you look into understanding your identity.

The past is simply the path-maker to your future. It shouldn’t be the marker. Your mistakes don’t define who you will or are now. These shouldn’t be permanently etched into your identity, taking up more space than the change you’ve done to omit them.

But when it’s not your past, what should define you?

The question may seem straightforward. After all, people are defined by who they are, the person currently navigating the world. But its connection to the past makes it tricky to separate. This link pushes people to not see past it, making them forget that their sin isn’t their identity.

Your sin doesn’t define you. Instead, Jesus’ mercy and love make up who you are. His generosity allows you to overcome everything, making you worth more than your experiences.

Your sins might seem grave. They will come creeping back in regardless of how long ago it had occurred or how well you’ve processed them. But you’re worth more than the sum of these mistakes. Your sin doesn’t define you, and it’s all because Jesus forgives and allows you to change.

Your ability to change defines you, the determination to be different from who you had been. This is what molds your identity.