"Moving Past Sinful Failure"

That's the title of today's piece at Our Daily Bread.

Before reading it, be sure to first read the powerful passage of Scripture on which today's installment of 'Our Daily Bread' is based, 1 Samuel 11:27-12:23.  It's one of the most powerful, poignant, and instructive passages in all the Bible. It underscores that God is both gracious and just: God forgives the sin of the repentant; but sin can still have consequences for the forgiven. 

When we genuinely pray for forgiveness of sin, we place ourselves under the authority of God, what some rightly call the sovereignty of God. Any time we repent for sin, we also implicitly place our lives in the hands of God. 

David accepted God's forgiveness...and God's sovereignty. 

God teach me to do no less. 

Patience, Tension, and Openness to What God Will Do

Those are components in faith, as explained in the book, Grace and Faith in the Old Testament, by one of my seminary professors, Ron Hals:

The sovereign freedom inherent in the Lord's grace always means that his people are called to a faith that allows the future to remain in God's hands. That automatically means patience and tension are a built-in part of what faith involves, but it also means an openness to God's next act in history.