Sins - Forgotten. People - Not Forgotten.

God's nature is to remember us at all times, but to not count our sins against us.  In Isaiah 43, we read a reminder of God's faithfulness to forgive and forget:
25"I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; And I will not remember your sins.26Put Me in remembrance; Let us contend together; State your case, that you may be acquitted.

The New Testament, in 1st John, tells us that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us internally.   Our faithful God is holding out His hands, wanting to relieve the burden of sin from our hearts - He desires to set us free, offering us forgiveness, the opportunity for a fresh start.  We can experience His mercies and His faithfulness - call upon Jesus, who will lead us in the paths of righteousness, the One who loves you so much.  He has not forgotten you and has promised to never leave you nor forsake you.

God delights in forgiving our sins - we have been justified by faith, and He has declared us to be not guilty. By confessing our sins, we place ourselves in a right position with Him, aligning ourselves to receive that forgiveness.   Micah 7 gives insight:
18Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy.19He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea.

Recently, the European High Court of Justice ruled that people have the "right to be forgotten," in other words, under European privacy laws, individuals can have the right to request that search engines remove links to information they feel is no longer relevant.

And, apparently, according to a USA Today story, Google is planning to comply. In a statement, the company said, "this is logistically complicated — not least because of the many languages involved and the need for careful review. As soon as we have thought through exactly how this will work, which may take several weeks, we will let our users know."

The ruling only applies to information retrieved by searching on an individual's name, and requests would have to be by the individual, according to legal experts quoted in the article.

The ruling came out of a request by Mario Consteja Gonzalez of Spain about a legal notice that appeared in La Vanguardia newspaper in Barcelona about his home's repossession and auction in 1998.

He said "proceedings concerning him had been fully resolved for a number of years, and that reference to them was now entirely irrelevant" and so requested that the notices be removed from the newspaper's website.

The court ruled that while the paper could keep the page up on its own site, Google must remove the listing from its search index.

Here are some further examples of link removal requests Google has received:

-- A company wanted links about it in a forum discussing consumer ripoffs to be removed.

-- A former politician requested links to a news article about his behavior when he was previously in office be removed because he wants to run again.

-- A physician requested that links to a review site about him be removed.

-- A celebrity's child asked that links to news articles about a criminal conviction be removed.

-- A university lecturer who was suspended wants links to articles about the suspension removed.

-- A tax scammer requested that links to information about his crime be removed.

So, the information remains posted online, it's just that the search engine would remove the link to it.  Sort of a partial cleansing.

That phrase, "right to be forgotten" caught my eye.  I am thankful that we serve a God who does not forget us - even when we reject Him, He continues to hold out His offer for each of us to come to know Him.  And, even though we might disobey Him or turn our back on Him, He continues to be faithful, and will restore us and forgive our sins.   You are greatly loved by God, and since He is your Creator, you are not forgotten - no one is insignificant in His eyes.

But...in the eyes of God and through the blood of Jesus Christ, our sins can be forgotten.   The Bible tells us that when our sins are confessed, that they are totally forgiven and we can be cleansed.   This is not a partial cleansing - He is capable of making us totally whole.  And, while the enemy will remind us of our transgression, God's Word reminds us of our transformation.

Finally, even though a sin is forgiven and forgotten by God, there are still consequences of our wrong actions.  The sin is removed, but the consequences may still be in place.  If you have walked on a path of destruction, then there may be people who are hurt, there may be relationships that are broken. There might be financial or emotional suffering that takes place.   While God erases the sin, we still may face the consequences - and He will give us the grace to withstand those circumstances we face.