Thanks Be to God

   There is a verse, right at the end of today's reading in Psalms 18, where David is speaking to God and says:

   "The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me."
   Those words can be either a comfort or a fright, depending on how you feel about your status with God. Two questions come to mind on this:

   1. Do I want God to deal with me on the basis of my righteousness?

   2. What is the basis of this right living?

   The first leads me to examine my life, deeds, words and thoughts and to see how they measure up to the standards of God. This spotlight invariably shows how bad I really am. The focus becomes clear as I step on the scale of God's moral judgment and find that I don't even register. My hands are not even close to being clean.

   The Bible says in Romans 3:10:

   “There is no one righteous, not even one,"

   I guess that "no one" includes even me with all my good deeds and thoughts.

   I have heard it explained like this. When God looks down at my life, He either sees me in all my sin or He sees Jesus and His shed blood that covers me. Without Jesus in my life the only words that I can utter are:

   "Woe is Me"

   Thank You God, for seeing Jesus and not me when you look this way.