“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”
Psalm 51:3
We will return to this Psalm numerous times this month as it captures so much of sin’s wounding potency. Consider what the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, wrought in the Garden. It drove them into hiding before the God who walked with them. It turned their love for one another into a vicious game of blame-casting. It brought on the eventual curse of death and their exile from Eden.
This is why minimizing sin is not only foolish, but callous. It affects every single part of our lives, often in devastating ways. King David tried hiding from his sin for at least nine months (the time it took Bathsheba to give birth), but it didn’t work. He wasted away. He couldn’t hide his sin from his own eyes or the watching gaze of the world—let alone before the judgment seat of God.
The walking wounded, like ourselves, need honesty. Our sin is ever before us in all its many hideous forms. But it holds us no longer. We are in the grip of our Good Shepherd (see John 10). And every finger of sin’s power is being pried off our weary souls by our Savior.
This is why minimizing sin is not only foolish, but callous. It affects every single part of our lives, often in devastating ways. King David tried hiding from his sin for at least nine months (the time it took Bathsheba to give birth), but it didn’t work. He wasted away. He couldn’t hide his sin from his own eyes or the watching gaze of the world—let alone before the judgment seat of God.
The walking wounded, like ourselves, need honesty. Our sin is ever before us in all its many hideous forms. But it holds us no longer. We are in the grip of our Good Shepherd (see John 10). And every finger of sin’s power is being pried off our weary souls by our Savior.
Scripture Focus
Psalm 51
Insight
“He breaks the power of cancelled sin,/ he sets the prisoner free;/ his blood can make the foulest clean;/ his blood availed for me.” (Charles Wesley, 1739)
Bible In A Year
- 1 Chronicles 16-17
- Psalm 1
- Revelation 20-22