“Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you.” (Psalm 130:3-4)
Food For Thought: Are you a record keeper when it comes to wrongs committed against you? Most of us are. We keep lists. We have long memories. We hold grudges. But not God! When we confess our sins and repent of our wrongs, he forgives those sins and no longer remembers our wrongs. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t be here today writing this blog, and you wouldn’t be here reading it right now. But praise the Lord, we live on a planet ruled by a longsuffering Creator who has withheld judgment we so rightly deserve—at least for now—and has made a way, through the atoning death of his Son, Jesus Christ, for us to have our sins forgiven and our guilt pardoned. By his grace—God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense—the cost of our sin and the price for our forgiveness was paid in full!
Now the Psalmist writes that God has done this, in part, that we might learn to “fear” him. However, some people take advantage of God’s offer of forgiveness by continuing to sin. Some even reason that since God will readily forgive them anyway, why bother to refrain from sinful behavior at all. But they misunderstand forgiveness and cheapen God’s grace. And make no mistake about it: There will be a payday, someday, for such attitudes. “Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God,” Paul wrote in Galatians 6:7-8. “You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.”
Rather than treating God like some kindly, old celestial softy, his mercy and grace should lead us to “fear him.” So just what does it mean to fear the Lord? It means to live with an unquenchable love as our response to his undeserved love. It means to have an overwhelming sense of gratitude for his unquenchable grace. It means to shudder with relief over what his mercy has kept us from. It means to offer the rest of our lives, everyday, as one gigantic thanksgiving offering. It means to gladly obey him with all of our energies. And it means to show the same kind of grace and mercy to those who have offended us that he has extended to us, because in reality, their offense, no matter how big, is only a fraction of the offense we’ve committed against at Holy God.
That’s the real “fear factor.” And that’s a very healthy thing!
Prayer: Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will never forget any of your many benefits; namely, you forgives all my sins! God, you are compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with inexhaustible love. You don’t keep lists or stay mad at me. You never punishes me like I deserve. Your love for puny me is as expansive as the galaxies, and as far away as the farthest star—as far as the east is from the west—so you have removed my sins me. O Lord, I will fear you forever!
Great Cloud of Witnesses: “We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.” —John Newton
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