God Is a Forgiver

When you are around those who do not know the Lord, how do they see you? Do they see someone who keeps the Lord's precepts? I'm asking myself the same question. Would these people know we belong to Him? If our behavior does not show obedience to the Lord, we defame His name.

Daniel knew this. In Daniel 9, he is praying for God's people. He first starts his prayer by praising God who Keeps His covenant with those who love Him. "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments" (v.4). Then Daniel confesses his sin and theirs. "We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments" ( v.5). Daniel knew the rebellion of God's people made them a reproach to all those around them (v. 16). Daniel was ashamed for himself and God's people because of their sin against God and what it looked like to the people around them. He put it this way, "Oh Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness though we have rebelled against Him" (vs. 8, 9).

The same message is ours today. We should feel ashamed before others when we are disobedient to the Lord, because it defames His name. Yet from Daniel's day in the old testament through the writers of the new testament, we see the promise of the Lord's mercy and forgiveness. This wonderful message of mercy and forgiveness is not new - it began with Adam and Eve and God's promise when He told the serpent, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (Genesis 3:15). The fact that God did not kill Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit that would surely bring them death, we see His mercy and forgiveness. Man is a sinner - God is a forgiver. Let us walk in the joy of His mercy and forgiveness to us in Christ.

P.S. I will not post until Monday, June 14, 2010.