Blessed Is...

David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

⁷ “Blessed are those
    whose transgressions are forgiven,
    whose sins are covered.
⁸ Blessed is the one
    whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

 

 

 

On the day of judgement,  I try to imagine standing on my own merit. I try and imagine how that would feel, even if I had lived the life of someone truly good and faithful, were I a Jackie Pullinger or a John Wesley, or if I had lived a quiet and humble life of a cleaner who shared their  bread with the homeless and their simple faith with all they came into contact with. I try to imagine that I was truly good, instead of a man who is largely fake, whose goodness is so intermittent and fickle whose faith wavers with every wind of thought, who lives to be seen to be good, rather than actual goodness. A man who did justly, rather than what ever he pleased and then asked for forgiveness later. A man who loved mercy rather than one who held onto his resentments long enough that they should embitter him and bring damage into the lives of those around him. A man who walked humbly before his God, who thought of himself with sober judgement rather than with puffed up notions of self importance.

I try to imagine what it would be like to stand before God with such a record behind me, but with no advocate to speak for me and no blood spilt in my defence.

How would I stand?

How would you?

 

If I were better than the best saint who ever lived, but stood apart from justification by faith,

 

 

I would still have nothing to make a case for me when compared to God's righteousness and holiness.

I would be speechless and utterly lost before his majesty.

And I would be cast from his presence.

David who wrote  Psalm 32, from which Paul is quoting, was a good man in many respects, but he was deeply flawed too.

I am so heartened by God's love of David. David pleased the Lord, somehow, in his earnest faith and passion. He was a tender hearted man in so many regards, and of all the sons of Jesse who were greater in stature and social standing than he was, God chose the youngest , the shepherd boy, to become his appointed King and the ancestor of Jesus.

And those wonderful words , which we love so much, were uttered about him; Man looks on the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.

I have no idea if Psalm 32 were written before or after the Bathsheba incident, where he committed both adultery and murder, but in a sense it does not matter.

He was still called a man after God's own heart.

David's life-time long walk with God taught him the value and need of God's forgiveness.

As the psalms say elsewhere;

 

 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,

Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness,
Ps 103:3

 

Even if I lived the best life I could I could never stand apart from mercy.

To not have my sin counted against me, now that is truly amazing.

My sin is atoned for, not by my tears of repentance, or my life of penance, but by Jesus glorious sacrifice and precious shed blood.

Everything I have ever done or ever will do, is covered, beneath the blood.

I am white as snow.

I would take one drop of that blood, and that one moment of forgiveness, over a lifetime of righteousness and good deeds.

I need not defend myself or plead my case.

Here I stand with but one plea,
That thy blood was shed for me.