The East and West

I could not leave Psalm 103 without mentioning one other incredible point that the psalmist makes about forgiveness.  Especially the forgiveness that God gives.  Have you ever felt like you have to spend your whole life trying to live down your past mistakes?  Others simply find it way too easy to bring up your past, even if it is years ago and you have genuinely and repeatedly asked forgiveness.  Sometimes, it forces you to a point where you are spending more energy avoiding individuals for the sake of avoiding the awkwardness of the guilt trip that occurs because of their constant reminder of your failures.  Bless the Lord, O my soul.  God is not like that.  The psalmist reveals: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:11-12).   There is an amazing illustration that has been used to demonstrate just how incredible this is involving a globe.  If you were to take a globe and put your finger on your current location and go north, when you reach the north pole, you will begin to go south.  If you were to go south and reach the south pole, you will begin to go north.  However, if you were to go east, you will always be going east and the same is said about going west.  Now let’s bring it to a perspective of the psalmist’s words.  The finger going east will never reach the point of going west unless they decide to turn around.  The finger going west will never go east unless they turn around.  God removes our sins so far from us that it is not a part of our lives.  That is the forgiveness he has to offer.  While others may bring our failures to light, over and over again.  In the eyes of God, when we have sought His merciful forgiveness, those sins that we have sought for.  Hopefully with this thought in mind, we can get a sense of how excited the psalmist was concerning God’s grace and mercy in light of his forgiveness of sins.  People are a more difficult critic than God.

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Would you be free from the burden of sin?

 There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;

 Would you o’er evil a victory win?

 There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r

 In the blood of the Lamb;

 There is pow’r, pow’r, wonder-working pow’r

 In the precious blood of the Lamb.

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Three priests were sitting around discussing how things were going at their respective parishes.

 The first priest complains of a terrible bat infestation at his church, and it is soon apparent that this is something of an epidemic at all three parishes. After much discussion of all matters clerical, they go home for the night.

 After a week or so, they meet again and discuss the bat problem.

 Priest-1: I tried to get rid of my bats this week. I shot at them with my shotgun, but I think I damaged the belfry more than the bats! I still have no way of getting rid of them!

 Priest-2: I tried another way. I couldn't bring myself to shoot them, after all they are God's creatures, so I went up with a big box. I knocked all the bats into the box with a stick and drove out to the forest where I released them. But they were back at the church before I was!!

 Priest-3: I've solved the problem. I did much the same thing. I had all the bats in the box, but before I released them, I baptized and confirmed every one of them, and they have not been back since......