Many of us will have heard the illustration: “If your whole life, what you thought and your heart attitudes were all put on a huge display screen for everyone to see, how would you feel?”. The answer of course, if that were ever possible, is that all of us would feel deeply ashamed!
Last Sunday morning we saw from Deuteronomy ch 9 Moses describing a major incident in which the people of God had shamed themselves so sinfully and deeply, that it seemed as if they were damned:
““13 I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! 14 Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven.”” (Deut 9:13,14)
Yet when Moses came to pray for them, he didn’t do so on the basis of how good they were or redeemable or changeable. Rather Moses appealed to what the LORD is like and on the basis of what He has already done and because of the honour of His name.
“…they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.” (Deut 9:29)
As we learned from the passage, the LORD isn’t kind to people, indeed to us, because we are good but because He is. The LORD doesn’t love us because we are loveable but because of His nature.
When, 1500 years after Moses, He sent the Lord Jesus to die on a cross bearing our sin and rise from the dead after 3 days to be our Saviour, it wasn’t because we were worth saving but because He is gracious. That right perspective of ourselves will help to keep us enjoying that He is always good, and humble depending on His grace.
Spencer Shaw