Our life is being recorded every microsecond of each day, all day, in the tiniest detail. From the point of conception to the last breath and heartbeat God has a record of our lives. Much like a photograph or video He has it all stored away until that time in future where our eternal destiny is declared. As shown in the following example, nothing of this record of our life is or can be deleted, with one exception and that is through the blood of Jesus Christ.
Sally and her brother Steve are photography addicts. Whether it is an armadillo in Florida, a mountain range in Canada, or an amoeba through a microscope, between these two, they most likely have photographed it.
Start a casual conversation with either of them, and you’ll end up sloshing through a pool of jargon. Recently someone commented about a passing sailboat and, in return, was inundated with talk about exposure, ISO, metering, figure-to-ground, rule of thirds, bluket joins, rabbles, monkey stops and kewn. They own dozens of digital and film cameras, a multitude of lenses, and numerous accessories.
Now ‘delete’ should have been Sally’s middle name, since she deletes all the pictures she doesn’t like, even if just the slightest bit imperfect. But Steve, on the other hand, is a ‘keeper.’ He feels that almost all of his pictures could be used for something, even if they don’t originally seem acceptable. The result? Steve has hundreds of thousands of photographs stored away for future use, while Sally has only a fraction of that.
Steve commented one day while Sally was engulfed in one of her many deleting sessions—about someone who never deleted the pictures captured. Sally paused and abruptly turned around.
“Are insinuating that I keep way too few pictures and should stop deleting so much?”
“Not at all—it was just something I thought about while reading a book last night.”
“Ha! You can read? That’s a good laugh!”
“No, seriously, I read about how God keeps a record of everything that we do, say, or even think. It’s like what we do with our cameras, except it’s in full action with unlimited detail. I mean, He knows everything about each one of us!”
“And does He share this with the world’s governments, or is it exclusively His own? Or is this how Santa got his secret information on every child on the planet?”
“You don’t care in the least! Look, this isn’t science fiction, a conspiracy theory, or some kids’ tale—it’s for real!”
“Okay, I’ll humor you. What does God do with the ones He doesn’t like? You know—the images that are all messed up and unusable. I refuse to believe that He has some kind of photo editing equipment that corrects mistakes.”
“Of course not! Actually these are not photos that you and I know of, but a written record that translates into a viewable image. It says so right here in the book I was reading:
“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
Revelation 20:12
All that He records is perfect; we are the ones that are a problem.”
“Uh-oh, here we go with that judgment stuff. Look, you might not be in the best standing with God, but I have accomplished lots of good works to help counter the bad things I’ve done in my life.”
“Well, from what I’ve read, that doesn’t improve our record in God’s book. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves right with God. He said, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). That means we were in the wrong from day one. We have to commit our life over to Him and let Him correct the ‘image’ He has on file.”
“How can God correct what has happened in our past? Does He rip pages out of this book you mentioned? You just said that He doesn’t use editing equipment, and now you say He corrects what was recorded about us—I’m confused.”
“Let me clarify. Our image is not exactly corrected; it is covered completely from God’s sight. We have given God such a bad reputation that we never come to fully realize the magnitude of His love for us. Another place in my book says,
“For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
I’ve never known of anyone to give up any of their children for the sake of the whole world. In addition, His Son Jesus willfully chose to die on a cross for our sins. It was His blood shed or poured forth on that cross which made it possible for the record of our sinful past to be removed from God’s view.”
“Where did you suddenly get all this knowledge? Just a few weeks ago you couldn’t stop rambling about the picture of the eagle flying at sunset that you missed. Now you’re an instant theologian! And what’s with this talk about ‘shed blood’ ?”
“Some time ago I found this old Bible, and as I had to wait for hours while a time-lapse photo project finished, I decided to read some it. Since then my life has changed and I can’t seem to put the book down.
Anyway, I read about how only the blood shed from the sacrifice of an innocent, defect-free lamb could temporarily cover the sins of the people of that period. Yet when Jesus came, He took the place of that lamb, and through His sacrifice of His shed blood, now everyone’s sins are permanently covered. God no longer sees that old photograph recorded of us or anyone else.”
“Ooo, That is pretty deep! So now, because of His blood, we all are covered and everything is good with God, right?”
“If the story ended right there, then yes, that would be the case. But it continues on over to us.
We have to make a choice of whether to accept Jesus’ sacrifice as our own, since we deserve to be put to death due to our sins.
Or to reject what He has accomplished for us, and suffer God’s wrath and eternal punishment due to the sinful life has been minutely recorded about us in His book.”
“Oh! That’s what I was afraid you would say. You know, from what you just said, I’m beginning to think that I would rather give my heart over to Jesus and follow Him and His ways. The thought of God’s photograph of my whole life with everything I’ve done never being deleted, and my inability to make it better, is not going over so well with me.“
So what about you? Is the image or record of your life blameless? Has it been covered by the blood of Christ? Every detail has been minutely recorded from when you were formed in the womb, to the moment you read this. Each and every thing you have done is in His book, ready for that day of His judgment.
You can’t hide anything from God. Even if you have forgotten about it, He still remembers. Jesus said, “…for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known” (Matthew 10:26).
Yet it doesn’t have to remain that way. By accepting what Jesus has done at the cross, and allowing Him to work in your life, you can have that record washed clean, or “covered with His blood.” While this photograph can never be deleted, Jesus made a way for it to no longer be visible before God. Won’t you follow that way right now?
To find out more on how to have this undeletable photograph covered and made clean please visit our page on The Way To God.
[Additional image credits: Featured image (when applicable) by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay; Opening photo by James Pangburn]
