“I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”

Reflection on Psalm 25:5-9

“Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O LORD! Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

David knew the sins of his youth were something that left to himself he could not cover up or deal with. The truth is that God sees all and knows all. This leaves us in a terrible predicament left to ourselves because we cannot do anything to erase our past, we cannot do anything to cover up those times we have hurt others and hurt God.

But David did not rely on what he could do to cover it up – in fact he did the very opposite, he confessed his sins (see also Psalm 51), he asked God to show him mercy, to pour out His steadfast love.

David turned the God who ‘instructs sinners in the way’, the God who ‘leads the humble’ and teaches ‘the humble his way’ – David turned to the God who does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.’… but instead …’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.’ (Psalm 103:10-12).

Here’s the bottom line then. God is not looking for the pretender. He is not looking for the one who can put on the best show outwardly that they are good – but rather the one who admits they are not. And the one who in that turns to Him, to His mercy and His love – who turns to God alone to rescue them, to forgive them, to guide them, to save them.

John Newton the hymn writer who wrote the famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ put it beautifully when he said: “Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”

For the person who puts their trust in Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for their sin – their remains no more payment for sin, but total forgiveness and everlasting life with God as their Father – there is no other truth worth living for, and no other joy that arms us to face all our days. Oh, what a God! Oh, what a Saviour!

Lest we forget.

A reflection on remembrance in Deuteronomy 1-6

“Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” (4:9)… “When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you–a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, ¹¹ houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant–then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” (6:10-12)

Israel were reminded over and over again not to forget, but to remember the acts of God in their past. How He had rescued them from harsh and oppressive slavery in Egypt, how he had defeated the nations they came up against them, nations that were much stronger than them, because it was God who had fought for them.

We too are tempted with the same forgetfulness. There is a reason that we have annual ceremonies for significant events, one reason is that we hold them as significant (or we once did), another is because we are prone to forgetfulness and neglect. There is a reason in Australia we say, ‘lest we forget’, because we know that we are well able to do so. (Interestingly this very term comes from a 1897 poem written by Rudyard Kipling referring to God and appears to refer to this very passage in Deuteronomy).

Israel – by and large – did neglect the truth of God’s past faithfulness and goodness to them, and so they forgot it. They appear to do very poorly in telling of it to the next generation as they were instructed to do, and they did not delight in and value God in their lives. In the end, they were led astray from Him and gave themselves to that which was set against Him.

Paul said to his good friend: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained.” (2 Timothy 2:8-9).

I know that my very own temptation is to forget what God has done for me. Far more than rescue from Egypt, He has rescued me from my slavery to sin, and death, and eternal separation from Him. God did this for me when He sent His Son Jesus to take my place for my wrongdoing. I am forgiven, even now, Jesus is my King and He is in control over all things, so I can trust Him always.

It is so easy for us not to remember. LEST WE FORGET.

The fear of the LORD.

A reflection on Proverbs 9:8-10
“Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you. Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

The ‘righteous’ and the ‘wise’ are ways of talking about those who trust in and follow after the God who made the world and who sent His Son to rescue it. In fact, we see this in the summary of true wisdom and knowledge here. True wisdom and knowledge comes in the fear of the LORD.

That is, to realise that the Almighty God who made the world, who created humanity in His own image, the one who we have turned away from and do not naturally follow after – this Holy God who could wipe us out in a second, turns to us with love.

He can’t stand our turning away, and it must be punished. But He sent His Son to take the punishment for our wrong! Jesus came to lay down His life for us. So, to fear God, is to understand His power, His set apartness from sin and sinners, His right to rule and judge those who disobey, and yet His mercy toward us, His offer of forgiveness and eternal life to us through Jesus sacrifice.

To fear God is to Who He is, and to live in response to this. To turn from that which does not please Him, and seek to live a life following after Jesus, trusting in His death to cover our wrongs and His resurrection to justify us before the just and holy God.

So ‘God fearers’ are learners, someone who can be rebuked, open to the correction of others. Seeking instruction, teaching, not proud, and arrogant, but humble and contrite in spirit, trembling at God’s Word.

This is true and eternal wisdom: this is the fear of God, that right response to Who He is and what He has done.

My prayer for myself, and for you, is that we would be humble learners. Those who acknowledge our wrongs to God and to one another. Those who trust in and hope in only Jesus and His cross to forgive us and change us.

Those who realise God would be right to punish us, and condemn us, and who are overwhelmed because in Jesus He comes to us with mercy, and grace, forgiveness, and peace and so how can we not love Him for that? How can we not respond to Him with praise, thanks and worship?

Taste and See His Goodness!

Reflection on Psalm 34:8 “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

I love the psalms. They are so raw and real. They bring out both the highest expressions of thanksgiving and praise and the lowest valleys of distress and despair. David who seems to have penned a lot of these psalms was a human being like us. He had struggles like us, temptations like us, and he failed like us.

In fact, he committed murder and adultery. He was a man who knew both the depths of his own failings but also the riches of God’s mercy and forgiveness.

He had tasted and he seen that God is good. He says earlier: “I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.” And later he says: “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

If you are anything like me, and like David, then you are someone who has struggles, whether emotionally or physically or mentally. There are struggles. And more than that we are people who have failed to live lives that give God thanks and praise – in fact, left to ourselves we are much better at giving anything and everything else thanks and praise then to God.

But David had experienced God’s goodness. The God who had forgiven his sin, the God who had rescued him and helped him to trust in Him in the midst of his fears. Have you experienced the goodness and love of God?

God sent Jesus out of love. He died in love for you – to rescue you, to rescue me, from all our sin. How true are the words of David’s call, “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”

Those who choose to trust in Jesus for forgiveness and follow after Him as King – it is not that we won’t struggle (on the contrary!), but there will be such joy and praise that wells up in us and that is yet to come that will make anything experienced now somehow not even worth comparing with what is to come… (Romans 8:18).

Father in heaven, thank you, thank you, thank you for Jesus, help me to taste and see Your eternal goodness!

In Christ the sinner is forgiven, freed and found righteous in Him.

A reflection on Romans 7:21-25
“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

I love this statement, question and answer by Paul. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Paul knew something about himself that is true about all of us. As religious as his life had been, seeking to do the right and avoid the wrong – he knew that his own heart was full of wrong in the eyes of God, who knows all.

His wrong motivations and self-seeking heart were never far away. In fact he says elsewhere, ‘by works of the of law no one will be justified’. No person on earth will stand before God and be righteous – or right in God’s eyes – by their own performance. Not you, not me, not Paul, not the Pope. Our deeds are like a polluted garment in God’s eyes.

The problem for us is that God sees our heart and he knows all the actions, words and thoughts that we would not want repeated to our best friend. He knows everything about us. And so who will deliver us from this body of death? What hope is there for me if there is no hope for the most religious to be made right with God by all their ‘good’ works?

Paul answers his own question with the most beautiful words… “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”…. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”The only hope that we have for full forgiveness and peace with God, for relationship and eternal joy in God. Our only hope is Jesus Christ.

Jesus died for our wrongdoing, our ‘polluted garments’. All of it… everything… He died so that by faith in Him we are given His own perfect righteousness as our garment to put on. In Christ the sinner is forgiven, freed and found righteous in Him.

All of God’s unmerited gift. All of grace.

If that truth does not lead us to worship and fruitful living… nothing can…

Captivated by His glory

A reflection on Acts 7:55-60
“… Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

What allows someone who is being stoned to death to cry out in prayer ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’? What fills someone with such selfless focus and love for those who are bringing about their death?

Surely it is what Stephen knew to be true and what he saw. “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God…’ He was given a vision of the glory of God.

I think something we learn from Stephen here is that this life is not everything, but the glory of God that awaits followers of Jesus allows us to show mercy to those who wrong us.

We can forgive and be gracious to others because through Stephen’s experience we are drawn into behold something of the glory of God also.

The glory of God, his wonder, his awe, his power, his love, his greatness, his beauty. We see Stephen’s response to this vision was one of joy and delight that allowed his concern not to be to save his physical life but to care for the spiritual lives of those attacking him.

He wanted them to come to experience the transformation that he had experienced through Jesus death and resurrection to forgive his sins and grant him everlasting life.

And, what is so cool is that we see his prayer answered. We are told a man named Saul is here giving approval to Stephen’s death. God answers Stephen’s prayer for the mercy of his killers in the most remarkable way.

Jesus will transform this Saul and send him “to open… eyes, so that [people] may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God… receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in [Jesus”].

When were caught up in God’s beauty and power we see things differently, as He sees them. When were captivated by His glory we live for His purposes and experience joy that goes beyond what we could imagine.

‘…he who is humble and contrite in spirit’

A reflection on Isaiah 66:1-2
“This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? ² Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD. “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.”

Doesn’t God value the things we so often do not value?
If you want to do well in our world it is often one’s pride in self and one’s importance that will get us ‘higher up the food chain’.
It is often the ability to assert ourselves and emphasize all our abilities and skills and importance that will impress others and get us the job or position of esteem. We don’t often value humility, contrition, let alone God’s word.

But here, that is exactly what God values: humility.
A true estimation of one’s self. Realising that we are created in the image of God but that He is the one it is all about – not us. Realising we only truly find ourselves – find who we were made to be –  in relationship to Him.

In fact, the greatest human example we have was the perfectly humble one – the incarnate Son of God who, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8).

And it is this Jesus that his followers are told to have the same attitude as. He who had no sin, but chose to pay for ours.  We need to therefore be aware of our sin, humble before God – knowing He knows all our dark secrets, our most shameful missteps and still He says to us in Jesus:
come to Me.

Find forgiveness, find peace, find eternal life in Christ.
How can we not tremble at God’s word, the Almighty Creator who knows the depths of our wrongdoing and yet in Jesus He comes with love and mercy and offers us forgiveness and grace.

How can we not tremble at this God, and humbly worship Him, knowing His great love in Christ that covers all our sin? Come, come and enjoy His love both now and forever.

Forgiveness is based not on other people’s worthiness to receive it, but on the basis of God’s forgiveness of our insurmountable debt.

A reading and reflection on Matthew 18:21-36
²¹ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” ²² Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. ²³ “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. ²⁵ Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

²⁶ “The servant fell on his knees before him. `Be patient with me,’ he begged, `and I will pay back everything.’ ²⁷ The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. ²⁸ “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. `Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. <sup>29</sup> “His fellow-servant fell to his knees and begged him, `Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ ³⁰ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.

 ³¹ When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. ³² “Then the master called the servant in. `You wicked servant,’ he said, `I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?’

 ³⁴ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. ³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

Our debt against God is unpayable by us, it is beyond imagination – but that debt in Christ is cancelled for those who trust in Him. He has paid for it all. Completely, finally, and forever.

We do not understand fully the forgiveness we have received by God Most High if we fail to forgive others who sin against us – at times in extremely horrible ways. Either we have failed to grasp the magnitude of our debt against God that has been forgiven, or we have failed to have ever experienced His forgiveness.

We, I, must look to the forgiveness I have received by God the Father through the Son to be able to (by the power of the Spirit) forgive and forgive and forgive just as God in Christ forgive me.