PSALM 130:1-4 – Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
THEME OF THE DAY. THE WHY OF OUR FORGIVENESS. Quick question to open today’s nugget. What are some of the reasons why God would extend His grace, love, and mercy in forgiving us all our sins? I am sure your mind is racing with quite a few. Maybe some of these . . . to remove His wrath from us, to reconcile us to Himself, to glorify His Son, to grant us heaven to be with Him forever, to show the world He is love, and to make us displays of His forgiving grace throughout eternity. Well, those are seven good and correct ones, but not the chief one. Yes, they are inseparable. All belong to “the family of forgiveness” and, including the one I am about to share, do not stand alone. They are the “whole package” of God’s wonderful gift of forgiveness. But in today’s scripture, we get a direct answer and the most important – “With you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” Do we think about that – walking in the fear of God is the main reason why He has forgiven us? If one was to do a Bible study from Genesis to Revelation on the fear of God, we would find it is the dominant theme in scripture mentioned either explicitly or implicitly over 250 times. More than love, more than salvation, more than forgiveness, more than any other single topic in the Bible. Why? Because it is the fear of God, that healthy sense of awe and reverence, that delights Him most and provides the greatest deterrent to sin and motivator to holiness in the Christian life.
In the New Covenant, our life in Christ, pay close attention to what God puts in our hearts and why – And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me (Jeremiah 32:38-40).
The Lord knows fearing Him is the best thing for us. It protects us from ourselves – our worst enemy – by realizing we are not to live sinfully independent but wholly dependent on Him. It allows us to see and enjoy Him in the proper relationships – Creator, Redeemer – without an unhealthy levity that is borderline blasphemy, and it separates us from the lives of the unbelievers. Remember how the Apostle Paul summarizes the spiritual condition of all unsaved people – There is no fear of God before their eyes (Romans 3:18).
So, the next time we are asked the question, “What are some of the reasons why God would forgive us?”, start out with the chief one – that we may fear Him all the days of our lives for His glory and our good.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to see my forgiveness is to walk in Your fear not merely to escape Your wrath.”
QUOTE: “If our understanding of forgiveness is not producing a holy walk in the fear of God, we miss its point.”