Friday 9 Mar 2018

March 9: Psalm 109:21-31

Key Verse: Psalm 109:21
But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.

Devotion:
One of the hardest things to do in life is to humble yourself before anyone. It takes a surprising amount of courage to step forward and say you got it all wrong. It takes a lot of humiliation to admit to others how you did things wrong. But that is the step which you have to take before you can hope for true forgiveness from others. You need to be willing to come forward and admit to the things you have done wrong as well as to be willing to take any retaliation they may wish to take on the chin. That is often our worst fear, just how much they are going to do to us if we come to them in humbleness. The surprising thing is that much of the time, we will be forgiven, and no retaliation will take place.

We know God will not retaliate. He has promised to forgive us for our sins as long as we are willing to come to him in the right way. We cannot pretend we are humble with Him because He will see right through our pretence. We cannot do all the right actions and hope that is enough, because He is looking inside our hearts. We cannot hope to gain His forgiveness unless we are telling and showing Him we are indeed sorry for what we have done. Only at that stage will we see His wonderful grace and mercy spring into action as He sweeps aside our sins and invites us back into His fold.

Once we know God is able and willing to bless us, then we need not fear just who is going to try and curse us. Once we know we have the strongest on our side, we know we don’t have to worry about anything else. Once we have God’s forgiveness, we know we don’t need any other. Once we are able to humble ourselves before God, humbling ourselves before anyone else is a piece of cake because we know we have already been forgiven!

Points to Ponder:
Do you have to apologise a lot?

Have you truly apologised to God?