The Joy of Glory

Micah 7:18-20
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

Reflection
Who pardons like our God? Who forgives like our God? Who relents from anger like our God? Who delights in steadfast love like our God? Who has compassion like our God? Who removes our sins forever like our God? Who shows faithfulness like our God? Who keeps their word like our God?

Who is a God like you?

The implied answer…the only true answer…is no one! No one is like our God! Do we ever stop to ponder just how incredible the Lord is? Do we ponder things like the fact he DELIGHTS in steadfast love? God doesn’t just forgive our sin, but he actually takes great joy in showing compassion toward us!

Do we ponder things like his treading our iniquities underfoot and casting them into the depths of the sea? In other words… he doesn’t just sweep our sin under the rug… he actually defeats it! He does a victory dance over it! He completely removes it and drowns it!

God kills the sin that would’ve killed us!

We take these things for granted. I take these things for granted! I fail to ponder the depth of their wonder. We act as though this is simple, and just what God is supposed to do… but the cross reveals that taking care of our sin was anything but simple… nor was it something God “had” to do.

Jesus was willingly killed in order to kill the sin that would have killed us!

What wondrous love is this? And he delights to do this??? Hebrews tells us that Jesus went to the cross for the JOY that was set before him. Ponder this today…Christ has not just killed your sin and lavished his love on you, but it has been his JOY, he has DELIGHTED to do so!

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.