March 4, 2018 - - Psalm 18:25-26 Do you see God as pure or tortuous?

With the merciful you show yourself merciful;

with the blameless man you show yourself pure;

and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.

Psalm 18:25-26 ESV

Interesting isn't it, how a hardened criminal will hate an honourable judge? The criminal will call the judge unjust, too strict...probably using other unprintable epithets as well.

We have in Jesus the Just Judge. The Father has ruled us sinful, not worthy to stand in the presence of His glory. This same Good Father, has sent Jesus His Son to bear the punishment for our sins. Jesus willingly took our place at the cross. Whenever our sins are confessed to Jesus, He brings us to the Father and declares us forgiveness because of the cross.

The Father was right to condemn us. If He forgave some and not others, He would be crooked and not just to all. However, the Father, Who is utterly holy and without sin, in Whose presence the sinful would be incinerated, provided the way to find mercy and release. Jesus took on the Father's punishment against sin. Those who admit their sin-steeped existence and need for a cleaning that goes right down to their flesh, and bones, and DNA prove the Father right in His pronouncement against sin.

As such a sinful man, I see God as merciful. His Spirit has sifted through my thoughts, my actions, my words, and my in inaction in the times when I knew the good I should have done and didn't do it. I deserved punishment. When, by the Spirit's revealing my sin sodden heart to me, and I confessed it, I received mercy (not punishment! nor the crushing sentence that should have been mine) mercy! from the King of Mercy.

The blameless man, in the Hebrew this word means "the man who perceive things as they are according to the facts", see God has pure, blameless. Think of it: the fact is all people are sinners and all live in rebellion against God unless His Spirit moves us to seek Him Who is already seeking us. The sinful man who confesses his sin and by his confession, of the sin in his life and in his thoughts, makes a statement that is in agreement with the witness of the Bible. Such a man is blameless because he is shielded by the blood of Jesus, shed to take away sin and purify the heart of the believer.

The crooked man is the one who remains stuck in sin. The man who sees God as tortuous (which means: deceptive, or untrustworthy) sees God through the lenses of his own sinfulness. His own heart condemns him but he blames God instead and never owns up to his sinfulness.

I go to church because I need the preached Word to hold up to my heart a mirror. The preacher, inspired by the Word of God and led by the Spirit, shows the congregants the depths of our ability to self-deceive and continue on in sin, ignoring the mercy and holiness of God. When I am convicted of my sins such a sermon also leads me to the one place I can find relief: to the cross of Jesus Christ. Often dragged unwillingly, it is the Spirit who scrapes away the layers of unconfessed sin and brings to my heart, my mind and my soul, the healing of the Gospel--the Good News of Jesus.

God of Mercy, I confess I am like one of the people I see on those shows about hoarders--I am buried alive in my own sinfulness and make little tunnels and pathways here and there. People who meet me would, if they really saw me as I truly am, would be as horrified as the friends of the hoarders are when they see inside the hoarder's house for the first time.

Your Word is true. Your Word speaks directly to the condition of my heart. Spirit of God, back up the dump truck and purge my heart of these layers of accumulated things that weigh me down and the sins that keep me from honestly knowing God.

Thank You for the mercy You hold out to me! Thank You for the healing that is in store. Prepare me for the struggle of this purging--which will last my whole life. Empower me to see the progress You are making so that I will always declare You pure and right. Keep me humble in prayer. With every room that is cleared and every victory You bring, do not allow me to view others with haughtiness or pride, rather, as one sin-hoarder who is being transformed by the Spirit to another who has not yet begun, let me pray with urgency and with understanding for the soul of the other so that in ALL things, You O God, are glorified and proved right in Your judgements. Amen.