Monday, April 25, 2011

Our Merit

Psalms 119:176 KJV
I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.

The entirety of this Psalm is a description of the wrestling match the believer deals with on earth.
• He has confidence in the Lord, but he faces struggles emotionally as well as externally.
• He has enemies against his faith but worse he struggles with his own failures.
The Psalmist makes it clear that without the Word of God he would certainly fail. But he insists, as much to himself as any, that the Word is sufficient to sustain him.

The Psalm ends in a surprising way: with a confession of straying. He asks for God's grace not because he had successfully honored all of God's Word but precisely because he had not.

Our merit must never be in ourselves but always only in the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

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