"How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel" ~ Psalm 78:40-41
If you and I are holding onto old guilts and pretending to ourselves and others that we are just so "low" that we feel God can't forgive us for "
this one", we had better stop provoking Him in the "wilderness of our own towering egos, and we had better stop grieving Him in the "desert" of our sandy hearts.
We are ego-centered if we refuse His forgiveness because we cling to something
we did which was "so dreadful" He can't cope with it. And we know the pain of the dry and sandy heart in which there is no oasis-pool of concern for anyone but ourselves. We don't mean to turn in upon ourselves. But when we carry unnecessary guilt, we
do. We are so painfully aware of
us that we lose our awareness of those around us.
Calvary is complete. We "limit the Holy One of Israel" when we clutch our old thought patterns and run from psychiatrist to minister to doctor, when He says to us:
"I have blotted out ... thy transgressions, and ... thy sins: RETURN UNTO ME; for I have redeemed thee ... I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine."
We are ego-centered if we refuse His forgiveness because we cling to something we did which was "so dreadful" He can't cope with it. And we know the pain of the dry and sandy heart in which there is no oasis-pool of concern for anyone but ourselves. We don't mean to turn in upon ourselves. But when we carry unnecessary guilt, we do. We are so painfully aware of us that we lose our awareness of those around us.
Calvary is complete. We "limit the Holy One of Israel" when we clutch our old thought patterns and run from psychiatrist to minister to doctor, when He says to us:
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