Yet… God is Merciful
Yesterday we spoke of how God is always with us, and I wonder if perhaps today you are saying “well, I’ve messed up too much for God”. Maybe you’re thinking “yes, the really good Christians can say that, but God would look at my sinful life and reject me”.
If that’s you today, thinking your sin had put a great wedge between you and God, let me share another yet with you: Psalm 78 is a Psalm of Asaph, in which he writes about the history of the Jewish people. And at one point he writes: “Their hearts were not loyal to him, they were not faithful to his covenant. Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath.” (Psalm 78:37–38 NIV11)
Mercy Despite Flaws
The Bible is a long, long story of God restraining His anger, and forgiving those who don’t deserve it. But many people struggle to believe this. They live in shame, dominated by a sense of guilt. They fear that they may have committed the unforgivable sin. And so they stay away from God.
They don’t know the power of “Yet he was merciful and forgave their iniquities”!
There was once a large and beautiful block of marble, brought from the Greek island of Paros. The famous sculptor, Canova, was commissioned to chisel a statue of the great Napoleon using this marble. Canova surveyed it with critical eyes before commencing work upon it and discovered a slight red mark on the block. To the unskilled it was an insignificant matter, but Canova said, “I cannot work upon this; it has a flaw. It is not perfectly pure and white. I will not lay my chisel upon it.”
A lot of people see God like this. They think that God surveys them critically, and when he comes across a flaw he says “ha! I can’t work on this! I need perfection!” But oh, thank God that this is not the case! Thank God for the “yet”! Because God looks at his dear created children and sees our flaws, and says “you aren’t perfect, yet I will be merciful”. And he begins chiselling!
What a difference this YET could make in your life. I’m flawed… yet He loves me! I’m imperfect… yet He cares for me! I was lost… yet he was merciful to me.
Mercy Through Christ
Really, this is the cry of every Christian. Being a Christian means knowing that Jesus died for you when you least deserved it. Look at Paul’s words in Romans 5: “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6–8 NIV11)
We were still sinners… YET Christ died for us. What love! What compassion!
Don’t walk around any longer steeping in shame friends. Don’t spend any longer with guilt. Yes you have sinned yet God offered mercy through Jesus’ death on the cross. And now we can be free, through what He did.
