“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.”
– Psalm 130:3-4
This is the honest truth that most in our time don’t want to deal with. If God listed every single sin we’ve ever committed – every wrong action, every wrong thought, every wrong word, every wrong silence, and every wrong inaction – we couldn’t bear to see it. If every personal moment of selfishness, cruelty, arrogance, dishonesty, rebelliousness, greed, lust, and hatred were listed, we’d be utterly wrecked. Our minds would be shattered for we would know that we are truly wretched, depraved sinners. No matter how good you like to think you are, if your Creator Who knows EVERYTHING about you listed all of your “less than good” aspects and history, it would break your spirit.
We need to understand this. We must stop comparing ourselves to mass murderers and start comparing ourselves to the perfect standard of our perfect Creator. Then we’ll begin to understand our desperate need for God’s grace and mercy. Then we’re ready to be blown away by God’s glorious offer to forgive us for all those things. He’ll wipe our slate clean and look upon us with love and all we have to do is believe in the Lord Jesus. God made forgiveness possible by sending His eternal Son, Jesus, into the world to live the perfect life we don’t, to die an atoning death to pay the penalty for all our sins, and to rise from the dead on the third day. For those who repent of their sins and trust in the Lord Jesus, there is total forgiveness.
It’s then, when we stand in a holiness and righteousness we don’t deserve and couldn’t possibly earn, reconciled to a God we shouldn’t be able to go near, that we can learn to truly fear God. Not with blind, paralyzing terror, but with holy reverence and awe for our Almighty Creator, Sustainer, and Father. At last, we can begin to grow in true knowledge and wisdom because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and the beginning of wisdom. #FollowJesus