No Place for Moral Superiority

Just the other day, when I was driving on the highway, someone abruptly cut in front of me, and I had to brake to avoid an accident. I don’t need to tell you what I felt at that moment. But then I remembered that I had done just the same thing to someone else only a few days previously. Of course, there was a good reason why I did what I did then, or so I reasoned to myself. On a more serious note, what went through your mind when you read that awful catalogue of sins yesterday? Were you angry or disgusted at people who live that way? Did you thank God that you are not like those people, with “no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy” (1:31). Or did you gloss over that list, thinking that, after all, it is describing other people?

Did you protect yourself by stubbornly refusing to see these sins in yourself? Are you still in denial? You are making things worse for yourself (v 5). Remember Jesus’ story about the two men who went to pray in the Temple? (Luke 18:10-14).

We delude ourselves if we think that we are not guilty of these things. We delude ourselves if we think that God won’t really judge us. (After all, we reason, he is a God of love.) We don’t want judgment—except for pedophiles, people who commit war crimes, people who are racist and bigoted (and the person who cut in front of me when I was driving).

What a double standard!

We forget that God is not like so many of us. When he is angry he is not like a person with a bitter heart who is taking it out on someone. He is not like a person with a short fuse who loses his temper. He is not like the alcoholic who is angry with the whole world.

He is wholly good. He is just. Sin makes him angry. And yes, he does love us.

Respond in Prayer

I cry out to you for forgiveness, Lord, for the times I refuse to see my sin. Help me to be honest and truthful before you. Help me to see how vast is your forgiveness. Thank you for loving me, a sinner. Amen.

Annabel Robinson