When watching the news, it is increasingly easy to conclude that things are getting worse and doing so faster. This gives rise to a correlated increase in polarization in pretty much any area of life (politics, religion, education, the economy, sports, etc.) as people take sides on issues.
It becomes exceedingly easy therefore to develop an ‘us versus them’ mentality in each of these areas. We can even become so carried away that we start judging the status of someone’s salvation by their position, and concluding someone is lost because of decisions they have made.
The account of King David screams out to me in these instances. Here was a man who did terrible and even unthinkable things and then tried to cover them up. Yet, yet, God still calls him a man after His own heart, because he would truly repent and turn away from these sins when it was pointed out to him. I think his story is the most profound story of the resilience of God’s grace in all of Scripture.
It is fine to call a spade a spade. However, if we fail to cling more tightly to the love of Christ than we do to any other issue in this troubled fallen world, we stand in danger of losing our salt. We can be so passionate about defending righteousness that we quench smoldering wicks, bruise tender reeds, and drive judgment as a wedge between the lost and the cross of Christ.
Day 23 Praise: Praise be to the Sovereign One who will not allow our foolishness cost another the opportunity to turn in faith to Him, and even, somehow, uses that same foolishness to draw others to His sweet forgiveness. Amen and amen.
SDG
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