Thanks for stopping by! This is Day 31 of my 2015 “31 Days Reflecting on God” series. Find the rest over here.
The Lord is merciful and gracious;
he is patient and demonstrates great loyal love.
He does not always accuse,
and does not stay angry.
He does not deal with us as our sins deserve;
he does not repay us as our misdeeds deserve.
For as the skies are high above the earth,
so his loyal love towers over his faithful followers.
As far as the eastern horizon is from the west,
so he removes the guilt of our rebellious actions from us. Psalm 103:8-12
Today I read in a parenting book, “If American boys lack anything of significance in their lives it is grace. Many are keenly aware of their inabilities and failures. They need reassurance that their errors can be put behind them. God can give them that.” (Meg Meekland, Boys Should be Boys)
I know deeply that this is true for women and girls, but hadn’t stopped much to consider it for my son and his friends, and by extension, other men. As I did, it’s like I visibly saw this heaviness on the shoulders of people who came to my mind. Too often Christians assume that people who don’t know God don’t care about their sin and guilt. But we all know keenly that we fail – we can’t even measure up to our own standards, let alone God’s.
Sin is a big problem, both in the world, and in our personal lives. But since when does God let problems win? He insists on taking care of them. He eradicates things that seem insurmountable to us. So no matter how bad our sin is, he steps right into the fray and deals with it himself.
His love led him to pay for our sin himself in a deeply personal way. So when we let guilt drive us to our corner where we huddle in shame and feel unforgiveable, we are refusing everything he has to offer us.
We think we can never measure up to what he wants. He says, “I never expected you to.” He calls us to come and receive his grace as a gift every day, to remember that at the cross he paid for everything we did or failed to do. He doesn’t condemn. He pours out blessing.
His loyal love reaches to the sky. So big we can never reach the end of it. He deliberately chooses to not deal with us like our sins deserve. He wants that to relieve the burden from our shoulders – man, woman, boy, girl. We aren’t supposed to carry the weight of our sins. Jesus did that for us already. This is grace.
Our God is gracious and he has taken our sins away from us. This is our deepest need and he has covered it. Our errors can be put behind us forever because of his grace and we can walk forward in freedom.