The NIV 365 Day Devotional
O God, Have Mercy
We excuse ourselves so easily. I was tired. He started it. That’s the way I was raised. Everyone else does it. The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it. It’s his fault. It’s her fault. Maybe it’s even God’s fault. But surely it’s not my fault!
O God, have mercy.
Until we stop making excuses, we aren’t ready to be forgiven. Whether we think we’re above the law (as David apparently thought when he chose to send for the married Bathsheba) or that our action is okay if others started it (as Adam thought in the garden) or that it isn’t really worth God’s notice (as Ananias and Sapphira may have thought when they lied about their offering to the church), our excuses cover us as poorly as Adam and Eve’s fig leaves in the Garden of Eden.
Sometimes we change the name to cover our sin: It’s not gossip; it’s sharing. It’s not coveting; it’s admiring. It’s not lying; it’s explaining. David even planned to have his lover’s husband killed in war to make the object of his lust a widow, thinking that would redefine adultery. But God didn’t buy it.
O God, have mercy.
God doesn’t forgive excuses. But God does forgive sin. He’s waiting for us to call it what he calls it: sin. When we acknowledge our sin and repent, God removes sin as far as the east is from the west. Picture a globe in your mind. No matter how far you go, you’ll never discover west by traveling east. That’s how far God is willing to cleanse, forgive and make us new.
When the prophet Nathan confronted King David about his sin, David’s repentance was deep and real. In Psalm 51 he put his feelings into words. He cried out for God’s mercy, asking God to cleanse him of his sin, to teach him wisdom and to heal his conscience and his emotions. David’s song of confession and restoration can give us courage to confess our wrongs, no matter how great our wrongdoings seem to us and no matter how far away from God we feel.
Repentance frees us. Honesty renews us. God’s mercy cleanses us.
Reflection:
- What excuses have you recently made to God, others and yourself for your sin?
- How have you renamed your sin to make it sound better?
- How does it comfort you that God doesn’t forgive excuses but that he does forgive sin?
Taken from the NIV Women’s Devotional Bible.