"Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness....Great is Your faithfulness." (From Lamantations 3, (NASB)
I recently finished Lamantations and Second Samuel. There are some sobering lessons here.
David blew it. He was a man of whom the Bible says, "had God's heart." But maybe he thought he was special. Maybe he thought he could get away with things others could not. Or, maybe he just got careless, forgot, just for a moment, as Brother Lawrence described it, The Practice of the Presence of God. Whatever happened it has always been a very sobering lesson to me. You do not sin without consequences. Now Nathan told David not to be discouraged, "The LORD also has taken away your sin." Yet subsequent events reveal that David reaped what he sowed, "The sword shall never depart from your house." This plagued David to the day he died. Christian counselors do not what to deal with such messy business.
Some people mistakenly believe that forgiveness means cleaning up our mess. It does not. "Whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." This is not just for ministry leaders to get more money out of you. Life itself confirms the reality. Now people will try to get counseling, try to pray, worship, fast, cast out, "agree as touching," do more and more good deeds, all in the attempt to prevent or destroy what was sown. I heard a man once quip, "I sowed my wild oats and prayed for a crop failure." Won't happen. In His Cross and Precious Blood, however, Jesus "broke the power of cancelled sin." Yes, and, "as far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us"---------- but not the affects.
The Bible says, "But there is forgiveness with You that You may be feared." David experienced this; and when I become aware of just how much forgiveness, just how much mercy, Jesus extends to me, I become a "psalmist" also. As with David's Uriah and Bathsheba, Paul's Stephen, and Peter's denial, we all carry scars of our sin. The invitation of The Godhead today, though, is to pray with Jeremiah, "Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me." Yet, "This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The LORD's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness."
Father, in Jesus' Name, I don't fully comprehend how You do things----- or life------ or myself. Oh, but how, "Great is Your Faithfulness, 'Lord unto me.'" Amen.
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When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
