All Fall Short

Scripture:

Psalm 51:1-4 (NASB)

Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your loving kindness;
According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
And my sin is ever before me.
Against You, You only, I have sinned
And done what is evil in Your sight,
So that You are justified when You speak
And blameless when You judge.

Devotional:

Be gracious to me.  What does it mean to be gracious?  I had to think about it and even look it up.  A Google search revealed several answers to my question.  One answer is to be kind, courteous, and pleasant.  The second answer I found is showing divine grace. 

Everyone has sinned.  Each of us stands guilty of something.  God is justified in pronouncing us guilty.  Romans 3:23 (NASB) “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” no one is blameless.  In the second verse David is pleading with God to cleanse him.  An illustration I once used with a group of teenagers involved a dry erase board, a permanent marker, and a dry erase marker.  You could feel the intake of air when I wrote the word sin on the dry erase board with the permanent marker.  I asked what could remove the word “Sin?”  The answer was nothing.  I even wiped it with a paper towel showing it cannot be removed.  This represented the sin in our lives.  Nothing we can do will remove the sin.  So how can we clean the board, the sin in our life?  The short answer is that we can’t.  I took a red dry erase marker and drew a cross over the word sin.  It is only through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross we are made clean.  2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB) “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” It is only through Jesus that we can be made clean.  I wiped the cross off the board removing the word sin.

God is justified in His judgment on us.  We are guilty and nothing we can do will make any difference or change it.  Christ stands in our place of judgment.  He took on our sin and paid the price of judgment.  He paid the price of our sins.  We are made righteous through Christ.