PSALM 103:8-16 – “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.”

THEME OF THE DAY: HE REMEMBERS.  One of the many things grieving healthy Christians is how often we fail the Lord. We experience great sadness when it seems as though we make no spiritual progress, fall into the same besetting sin again and again, and just don’t seem to be making a difference for Jesus’ Kingdom.  And when we hit those low seasons in the Christian life, we must be careful to avoid two things.

First, in seasons of discouragement over our failed performance or conduct as Christians, don’t get into the performance trap.  Jerry Bridges in his excellent book Transforming Grace, wrote, “After we become Christians we begin to put away our more obvious sins. We see some positive change in our lifestyle, and we begin to feel pretty good about ourselves. Then the day comes when we fall on our face spiritually.  We lapse into an old sin, or we fail to do what we should have done. Because we think we are now on our own, paying our own way, we assume we have forfeited all blessings from God for some undetermined period of time.  Our expectation of God’s blessings depends on how well we feel we are living the Christian life. We were saved by grace, but we are living by performance.”  When we don’t measure up, we are tempted to try harder.  Don’t go there. The grace that made us Christians is also the grace that empowers us to live as Christians.  Let failure teach us about grace, not cause us to become legalists.

The next thing to avoid when we fail the Lord is spiritual amnesia – forgetting how God sees us, even in our sinning and failing.  Today’s scripture reminds us God knows how weak we are and prone to fail.  He remembers us as we are – His weak and always dependent children. Then He showers us with compassion, patience, and pity.  He doesn’t want us to languish in self-dug pits of discouragement over our many failures and sin.

So, God remembers what and who we are.  Let these liberating truths move us to live the Christian life with greater dependency on His grace and not get on the performance treadmill of attempting to obey Him in the always failing strength of ourselves.

PRAYER: Father, thank You for remembering how weak I am and showing me such great compassion.

REFLECTION: Don’t let God’s pity and compassion tempt us to commit the sin of presumption towards both.