Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him,
In those who hope in His mercy. Psalm 147:11

Once a while ago I was in the throws of guilt over a sin I had committed. My fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault. No excuses. Guilty.

I felt so horrible. I couldn't find anyplace for my conscience to escape the accusations against me. I was reading my Bible, trying to find comfort and not doing too well until I came upon this verse. Suddenly it dawned like light in my head. God wants me to hope in His mercy! Mercy is something that only comes to those who don't deserve it. That is what makes it mercy and not merit. He was pleased with me when I turned to Him in hope that He would be merciful. I thought I deserved a good flogging, (and I was right.) but my trying to punish myself earned nothing with Him. He wanted me to hope in His mercy.

What a rich God we serve.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

God is good.....all the time. :-)

Hey, was that you calling the Dennis Prager show Thurs. a.m.?

kerri @ gladoil said...

hee hee :)

Joyce said...

Yep. Christ came to the sick, not to those who think they are well. If we think we can clean up our act and make ourselves more acceptable to God somehow, then we're really saying that Christ's atonement was insufficient, that we need to do some good works also. It's so easy to fall into the salvation by a little bit of my works trap.

Thank you, Kerri, for your comments on my blog. :)

LynAC said...

good to know I'm not the only one who needs mercy. I think that is one thing I really like about the Anglican worship service--much mercy there abounds. How glad I'll be to go tomorrow!!!