Psalm 71:19
Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens.
How often do we view our sin less seriously than God does? Probably all the time. That sounds like an exaggeration, but we really have a very limited and finite understanding of true righteousness - the righteousness of God. His holiness is beyond our comprehension. And, to the extent we do recognize this, we try to minimize our own sin in order to make ourselves appear better than we are. We don't like to admit our sin. Yet it is crucial in order to understand grace.
This ties in to our NT passage as well.
Rayburn says this...
Pity the generation that hears about grace only and never understands the message because it never heard about the law. Grace is little more than leniency and has no saving power unless it reaches people in whom sin has sprung to life and they have died to complacency and self-sufficiency.
Unless you are forced to face the standards of divine holiness and see them reaching into your heart where you daily and hourly and moment by moment betray those standards, unless you see the living power of your own sin surfacing and asserting itself in the face of God's holy law, you will never appreciate how impossible it is for you to please God, how desperate you are for a righteousness you can in no way supply yourself, and how perfectly Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God meets your need.
Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Psalms 72-73; Acts 26
3 comments:
This verse from Psalm 70:5 speaks to both what Rayburn says about out need for God and forgiveness, as well as King David pleading for help from God.
5 But I am poor and needy;
hasten to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
O Lord, do not delay!
I am an imperfect human that falls way short of what God desires out of me. Only through God's help, and forgiveness, can I get to where He wants me.
O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
18 So even to old age and gray hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come.
19 Your righteousness, O God,
reaches the high heavens.
You who have done great things,
O God, who is like you?
The verse you mentioned stood out for me too. I thought of it also being not only about how we truly don't understand God's righteousness but also how we need God's grace from when we are young until we are old. Also, how important it is to teach our children about it so that they too might have an understanding.
I also had the same scripture jump out to me that Nathan quoted. King David was a king and yet he realized his shortcomings and also knew he couldn't do all things on his own.
A good reminder for someone like me, who finds it difficult to ask others for assistance.
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