–you make the video–
Last Sunday at our gathering I read this passage at the conclusion of our time together.
It’s words have reverberated around in my soul this week like a voice echoing through a hollow chamber.
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in Love. He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
Not to big of a deal if it’s coming from the heart of a guy who got it right (at least most of the time). To give David some credit he did trust deeply in God at times and play a pivotal role in God’s redemptive story. Bringing the Ark of God back to the City of God that is once again inhabited by the People of God (Israel) is no small feat. He wrote the majority of our “psalms” and led Israel into a bountiful time. He was a king, a lover of God and a mighty leader.
But don’t get me wrong, this guy was also jacked. I mean seriously jacked up. He was a murderer, adulterer, coward, denier of God, lier, and thief. That’s right-King David the almighty. The guy knew darkness, pain and disillusionment as well as any human that has walked the earth. not in the I slipped up and thought the wrong thing kind of darkness but in the I thought it, acted on it and then acted to cover up my actions kind of way. His songs recorded in scripture would cause most modern church communities to load him up on prozac and send him to a therapist. Or better yet-kick him out of the church.
But what does God think of David? When his eyes, the only eyes that can truly see a life from beginning to end, peer into the soul of David what is it that matters to God?
Thankfully he shares His observations with us-
“The eyes of God sought out a Man after His own Heart.”
Mind Blowing. Re-Orienting, Life Changing (if we believe it).
Modern Christianity has been diseased. Diseased by a dogged belief that we are either as good as our last triumph or as worthless as our last transgression.
Plagued by a creeping fear that God remembers our sins and treats us according to what we deserve. To that David’s Life screams-
Not true, false, wrong answer, try again.
That should piss off the self righteous voice most of us are still trying to tame. We want some credit for being good boys and girls.
Not in this economy. Not in this environment where Grace is the only air to breathe.
In fact, if David is any kind of guide for us, we could say that God forgives and forgets our shortcomings and failures while always remembering and cherishing our Love for Him.
Forgives Transgression.
Cherishes our Hearts for Him.
Restores our Souls.
Incredible.
Sounds like an amazing Father. A Dad who who knows that deep down inside you intend well but the allure of your sisters exposed un-pinched arm is sometimes too good to pass up. A Father who is intimately acquainted with all of our ways and still loves us with all of His heart.
A Father who understands that we are frail, self conscious, insecure, fearful children who need His reassurance more than his rod.
It is hard to escape the One for whom the darkness of night is as bright as the day.
So Let’s make a deal.
Let’s stop running from God with our questions, sin and pain.
Let’s stop believing that we have to start over again on the yellow brick road every time we have a lapse into our Old ways of life.
Let’s start trusting God’s love for us.
Let’s start by loving each other in that kind of way-Completing God’s love in one another’s experience.
Question: What would change in your life if you believed that God has Cast your transgression into the sea of His forgiveness and is in Love with and Cherishing your Heart today?
What might happen if you loved other people that way?
Neither our failures nor our flurries of Christian behavior do anything to effect the way that God sees us. Really.
He Loves Us. Me, You, King David, Ma Theresa and Osama bin Laden.
He declared it through the offering of His Son Jesus as a once and for all wrath absorption solution for the sin of the entire World past-present-future.
If you want to try to outdo that be my guest-but make a film while you do it because it will rock.
The fresh footage from God is this-You Are Loved-Forgiven-Embraced-Empowered-Loved.
David believed it and though his life was sin stained-the trail he carved on this earth was littered with memorials of God’s Love and Greatness.
Ignore God’s love if you must and forge your own way towards perfection. Just remember to turn on the video camera because we want to see how it works out for you.
“In this is Love-not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to BE the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to Love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.”
My Prayer for us today:
Here is my offering
It is all I have to bring
Broken and Torn
Weary and Worn
But it’s Me.
You-You always Arise
Calling me Precious and Honored in Your Sight
No darkness can even hope to hide
From the Love that knows me from the Inside
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