RE: Psalm 38

This is a difficult psalm to read. David is pained, ashamed and acutely aware of his insufficiencies. As disturbing and sad as it is, David's not wrong. He's not wrong about himself, and he's not wrong about us. We are messed up people.

I read on the internet that everyone deserves to be loved. This idea comes close to the truth, but comes up short. We should be loved; we were designed to love and to be loved, but we do not deserve to be loved. We embarrass ourselves daily by judging and hating our neighbours; we deserve as bad as we give. The fact is that if our hearts and secrets were laid bare to the world, we'd see that no one deserves love. If you know love, you'll know that this suits love just fine. Although we each make inexcusable mistakes, we are loved anyway.

It would be a fine thing if we deserved to be loved and God loved us. It is an abundantly greater thing that we don't deserve love, and God still loves us. The psalmist, David, the murderer and adulterer, deserves death; according to Matthew 5 so do I. We all do; however, the Bible tells us that so that it can tell us this:

Photo by Dirk Hartung

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! -Romans 5:6-10

Dear Sinner-Saints, may you grasp the passionate and compassionate love God has for you, which can never be earned, but is available freely to all who don't deserve it.