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| Psalm
51.9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. |
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| All our best efforts at morality and spirituality could not expunge our guilt or deflect his wrath.* |
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David is ashamed of his sin and wants to remove it from
in front of his own face. He doesn’t really have to ask God to hide his face from it – God can’t look at
sin. God’s holiness will not allow him to be in the presence of sin. The
psalmist’s iniquity, the same as ours, must be blotted out before God can face
us.
This is what God did when Jesus was on the cross,
bearing my sins on himself and erasing them. My sin is so ugly that God cannot
stand to look at it – even though it was his only and beloved Son who was
wearing it.
While
we want God to hide his face from our sins, we seem intent on reminding him of
them by never letting go of them ourselves. If God can forgive us, why can’t we
forgive ourselves? Why do we think we have to carry around our load of guilt
when Jesus already carried it on the cross? If you owed $10,000 in back-taxes
to the IRS, would you continue to write them a monthly check if some generous benefactor
had paid it for you? No; you say “Thank you,” and show your appreciation by
trying not to rack up more debt in the future.
There
is no penance that we can make to pay for what we have done. No amount of
suffering on our part will atone for our sins. But our debt is paid in full. Praise
him for his mercy and live a life of gratitude.
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| We have to realize that we cannot earn . . . anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it.* |
Amen.🙌🙌🙌
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