Saturday 30 Jun 2012

Saturday Reading: Psalm 103:8-11

Key Verse: Psalm 103:8
8  The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

Devotion:
After a few days of looking into just how awesome our God is in His mercy and grace for us, we end the week with a reminder that He is patient with us as well. How often do we blow up at the first sign of trouble or the first sign of anyone doing something that we don’t like or even agree with? If we are honest we will admit to having very little patience with anything that does not go exactly according to the law of “us”!

We know just how much God loves us by what He has done for us in allowing His only begotten Son to die on a cross in our stead. We know that He is merciful in that He has promised to forgive us when we come to Him and ask for forgiveness. We know He is just in that His promises have stood the test of time. We know that for someone to love us means that they will not just give us a cuddle and say that everything is all ok because part of loving someone is also keeping them on the straight and narrow by correcting them when they are at fault. If we know this all then we should never forget the fact that God’s love for us means that He is also going to be willing to correct us when we do do things wrong!

It may well be that God is much more patient than us and that we do see Him go above and beyond that which we think is normal; but we should not forget that He is Just and that He must do the correcting when we do fall foul of His laws. If we are going to continue doing things wrong even after He has reminded us that we are doing it wrong – we should not expect anything else other than loving correction to bring us back in line with His will!

What gets me is that even when I do get it all wrong, He does not always correct me in ways that I would expect; again His mercy goes far beyond what I could imagine. If we were to receive all that we knew we deserved for what we have done wrong we would be more than knee deep in trouble. But when we come to Christ and ask for His forgiveness He is the one that separates us from that sin and from that debt so far that we will never have to look back on that debt ever again. It is not just the fact that He is saying it does not matter but the fact that He has completely taken us away from that sin debt and set us in a place that will never remind us to go back there. Let us therefore take that lead and walk away from our old lives of sin and walk with Christ, forgiven and clean!

Points to Ponder:
Do you still feel guilty?

Do you know His forgiveness?