LEARNING DAILY

Psalm 86:5, For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

 Every Believer has so much to be thankful for, every reason to praise and worship God. It is only because of His mercy—sending His Son to take upon Himself the punishment for the sins we have committed, commit, and will commit – that allows us to be able to walk a narrow way to eternal life with Him in His kingdom. Do not ever take that with a complacent attitude. Not one Believer deserved this or earned it or was good enough on their own for this to happen. Not one Believer needed to clean themselves of their sin (because they could not) before giving their lives to Jesus Christ to save and change. Jesus Christ gave His life for all who would believe and come to Him just as they were.

This verse is a part of David’s prayer for mercy which began with David recognizing that he was “poor and needy”; David needed God to hear his prayer and knew that God was compassionate and loving. David did not fear humbling himself before God, believing that God would hear Him because of it. David told God that he trusted Him and that he (David) was holy. He was holy in the sense that he “faithfully followed God’s laws; not in the sense that he was perfect” (David Jeremiah Study Bible).

David based his prayer on God being “good and ready to forgive”. It might be difficult to “understand” what God is doing in our life or the life of others. There are times we go through the wilderness like Israel did when they left Egypt or find ourselves in the valley of despair because of difficult times. Those are the difficult times of walking the narrow way. Do we doubt God’s goodness during those times or trust Him to see us through them? Are there times you doubt God’s goodness and His desire to give His children good things? Believers want to understand but understanding is not always part of the walk with the Lord. Our walk with Him is always centered in faith!

God is always ready to forgive sin in our lives. He is never surprised by what we do, say, or think. We don’t have to say any special words to be forgiven. We are not required to do anything to encourage Him to forgive. We don’t have to observe any special religious ceremonies to be forgiven. And, we don’t have to make promises that we probably won’t keep to get Him to forgive us. God is always ready to forgive – we just need to believe He does so! But Jesus told those He forgave to sin no more. We walk the narrow way as best we can, living in accordance with His Word. We do not try to take advantage of His forgiveness by doing whatever we want. He still demands we live in obedience to His Word.

That is what the cross is about! Forgiveness is God’s nature. Verse 15 of this Psalm tells us, “But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.” It is because of this that we give Him our praise, our thanksgiving, and all of our worship!