Date: January 16, 2013 1:35 AM
Topic: +DEV+ God Loves The Contrite Heart
God Loves The Contrite Heart
"For this is what the high and lofty One says... 'I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and... the heart of the contrite.'" (Isaiah 57:15)
Scripture Focus: Psalm 51
If God is all-powerful and loves His children perfectly, why would He leave remaining sin in our lives to torment us? If He could have saved us and made us perfect immediately, why has He ordained that our lives here on earth be characterized by weakness, unrelenting temptation, and profoundly painful sinful failure?
God thinks differently than we do. We imagine Him to be delighted by our goodness, so we try hard to impress Him. We believe that He loves us best when we obey Him and is horribly disappointed when we sin and let Him down. Think again. God is most delighted by the perfection of His Son, so He is most pleased when we see our huge need for Christ and look to Him for our righteousness. God is lovingly committed to weaning us away from our dependence on our own goodness. Your ongoing struggle with sin today is an invitation to look afresh to Christ and not to your own obedience. You needed His perfection to be saved in the first place, and you will need it many times today.
Insight: "Experience is God's school; those taught by him learn they have no wisdom by their mistakes, no strength by their slips and falls." (John Newton)
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