How God sees us

…[God] rescued me because he delighted in me.

The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; he repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands. (2 Samuel 22:20-21)

Those words are amazing when you look at David’s life, because there were so many times he failed.

And yet he could say things like,

For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not turned from my God to wickedness.

Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me and have not disregarded his statutes.

I was blameless before him and kept myself from my iniquity. (22-24)

I don’t think David had forgotten about his failures. Nor do I think he was making light of them.

But he did understand God’s grace. As he said in another Psalm,

He will not always accuse us or be angry forever.

He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities…

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:9-10, 12)

Years later, God would say through the prophet Isaiah,

I am the one, I sweep away your transgressions for my own sake and remember your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)

How often, though, do we remember our sins and failures? How often do we beat ourselves up over them?

God has chosen to forget them. He will never bring them up with us again.

And when he sees us, he sees someone holy and blameless in his sight, clothed with Christ’s righteousness.

Our “righteousness” is often imperfect, stained with mixed motivations.

And yet, God in his grace, chooses to accept them just as he accepted David’s.

Not only, that, he delights in us.

So let us sing with David,

The Lord lives—blessed be my rock!
God, the rock of my salvation, is exalted. (47)