Monday, February 15, 2021
It is as good as it gets: blessed by God!
It looks beautiful.
The reality is the lake is poisoned and the weeds are fortunate to survive.
God redeems us and all creation:
Poisoned by sin and evil
God makes us beautiful again.
Judges 10:15
The Israelites said to the Lord, ‘We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you; but deliver us this day!’
Luke 15:7
Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
Words of Grace For Today
Confession is admission of one’s sins.
Confession is really possible for us only when we know that God is ready to forgive us.
So the Israelites say to God: ‘We have sinned; do to us whatever seems good to you; but deliver us this day!’ They know that God will deal fairly with their sins … and that God will deliver them from their sins.
This we know as well.
Yet, we often hesitate to confess our sins. We prefer to hide our own sins, even hiding them from ourselves, yet alone … from God. Well, we try to hide our sins from God, even though we know that there is no way, no way at all, to hide our sins or anything else from God!
This is what we know: God’s priorities and reasons for joy are not what ours are. As we try to hide our sins and hide from our sins, we think that the greatest thing is for God to know we are righteous, worthy of God’s favour.
Of course, there is no one who is righteous before God and worthy of God’s favour. We are all miserable, wretched sinners. None of us deserve God’s favour. Not on our own.
God’s joy is truly then when we recognize reality, our reality as sinners, and our reality before God, that we desperately need God’s forgiveness. God offers us forgiveness and waits for us to repent. God forgives us first and then waits for us to repent.
It is God’s joy to see us repent. Our sins are not what God desires, they are miserable after all, and they are inevitable. God knows our sins long before we commit them, long before we are even conceived, even before God created the universe. God knows what God created and who and what we are. The joy God finds is when we take our situation that God created us to live in as seriously as God took it before, while and after we were created: we are sinners and we need forgiveness, and life for us is much better for us when we confess. That’s just how it works the best.
Of course that does require us to be humble, and be humbled again and again. That’s just our reality. Better to take reality for what it is, and celebrate God’s Grace as the lubrication that keeps life running smoothly, or at least as smooth as God can make our sinful lives by redeeming them freely.
Which certainly beats trying to live out our own lies about our own sins! One would describe living redeemed by God as …
well, blessed abundantly by God!