Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered. (Psalm 32:1, NIV)
I don’t know what gifts you received for Christmas. Some of them might even have had to do with golf—a dozen balls (the staples), a foursome at a favorite course (yeah, baby!), or a short putter (sorry, but it’s time).
These are only material things, but you might have slipped into calling one or more of them “a blessing.” You might have thought the same of the hours you had with friends and family and brothers and sisters in Christ: “a blessing.” No worries there. The Bible refers to these things as blessings from the Lord. The provision, the people, the purpose he gives—all these are ours by his hand.
But above these is a blessing we are at risk of brushing over. I say “at risk” because the enemy of our souls would love us to forget it, to go through our days without its promise.
Beautifully, we have David’s words in Psalm 32 to remind us of the blessing we really want. So powerful are his words, so important for our meditations, that we would do well at a time like this, when we sort through the priorities of our lives and renew our resolve for a nascent year, to post this psalm somewhere where we might see it every day.
The blessing we really want, the one that will matter each day and on the day when we are called to be with Jesus, is the blessing of forgiveness.
Reluctant or vocal in our confessions, we recognize from Scripture that we can get nowhere with God unless we have first accepted this fact: we are sinners. This isn’t just a label; it’s a condition from which we desperately need rescue. It is the disease that will kill us and kill us again if we have not secured the remedy (Revelation 20:11-15).
But the remedy is readily available. It is the forgiveness of God, secured in Christ. What is the covering for sin? The blood of Jesus. Our sin state is there, but it is blanketed by Christ’s sacrifice. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow,” the Lord declared through the prophet Isaiah.
You and I must count ourselves as sinners, but the glory of God’s forgiveness is that when we do this, when we confess our transgressions to the Lord, we are blessed as “one whose sin the Lord does not count against him” (Psalm 32:2). That’s something we can be happy about any time of year!
—
Jeff Hopper
January 4, 2016
Copyright 2016 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.