Tag: Forgiveness

Morning Musing: Psalm 130:4

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“But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The fear of the Lord is a poorly understood concept even among His people.  This is quite simply because we think about fear only in a single sense: terror.  To be afraid of something isn’t good.  Thus, while perhaps we should fear the Lord because we’re told to do so over and over and over again in the Scriptures, this isn’t something that ultimately draws us closer to Him.  We fear Him so that we’ll do what He says.  Once we develop the pattern of doing what He says, then we begin to grow closer to Him, at which point we don’t need to fear Him any longer.  The logic here seems just about airtight…and it’s just about completely wrong. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Jeremiah 3:25

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“Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us.  For we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Genuine, heart-felt repentance is tough to do.  It requires a couple of things that we are pretty loathe to give.  It requires first a recognition that we have done something that was not right.  It was wrong, not in an abstract way, but in a way that was deeply personal for us and also for the other people who were affected by it.  This is tough in and of itself.  Often, when we have gotten caught doing something wrong we recognize the abstract, but not the personal.  We are inconvenienced by the attention to our misdeeds, but not truly sorry we did it.  This is the politician’s apology.  In other words, we are more sorry that we got caught than that we did whatever it was we have been caught doing. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Ephesians 2:4

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“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us…”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever wondered how and why our God could be such a merciful God?  Perhaps not.  Perhaps you’ve wondered more often why God seems like such an angry God.  If that’s the case, you haven’t been taught very well about the character of God.  That’s not your fault.  It’s a symptom of our culture. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Psalm 107:6, 13, 19, 28

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“Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This refrain echoes four different times in this Psalm.  “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”  This was the God they served and the people of Israel experienced it over and over and over again.  They found themselves in all kinds of trouble, most of which was of their own making.  Each time they fell headlong into the mess and from the perspective of the moment, it looked like they were going to be goners. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Psalm 106:45

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“For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

God doesn’t have mercy on us for His sake.  He doesn’t extend to us His steadfast love because it does something for Him.  He does it for us.  He does it because His love naturally moves outward and we are the only creatures in the world made in His image.  He does not deal with us according to our deeds, but quickly offers mercy when we cry out to Him for our sake.  He doesn’t want to see us destroyed.  He wants to see us live abundantly and flourish. Read the rest…