You forgave the guilt of my sin.

Psalm 32 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Blessedness of Forgiveness and of Trust in God.

How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered!
² How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit!

³ When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away
Through my groaning all day long.
⁴ For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.
⁵ I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I did not hide;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”;
And You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah.
⁶ Therefore, let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him.
⁷ You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.

⁸ I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go;
I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
⁹ Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding,
Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check,
Otherwise they will not come near to you.
¹⁰ Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
But he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him.
¹¹ Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones;
And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.

Medical science agrees that things such as anxiety, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness and guilt, all of these negative emotional feelings, also have a negative effect on the physical body. The psalmist says:  When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away… My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer.     Worry, doubt and anxiety all have roots in sin. Revelation 21:8 says:    "But for the cowardly (fearful) and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."       Fear, worry and  doubt are rooted in sin because they are contrary to faith. We all will worry at times. We all will have some doubts and fears, but when those things become dominant, ruling our lives we need to recognize that they separate us from God. It is as if we believe that God is not big enough to take care of our problems.

The psalmist says:    I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”.     Regardless of whether we are involved in sins of immorality, idolatry, deceit or we are overwhelmed with doubt and anxiety, the solution is the same, we need, like the psalmist, to first acknowledge our sin. We need to recognize that anything that we allow to be bigger than God in our lives is sin. We need to remember that God is omniscient, all knowing and omnipresent, everywhere, it is utter futility to think that we can hide our sin from Him. In Psalm 139, the psalmist says:   O Lord, You have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.  You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all…Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.  If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,  Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.         We cannot hide from God, nor should we want to. The psalmist says:    I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”  And You forgave the guilt of my sin.    1 John 1:8-10 says:   If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

The psalmist continues:   You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance.    So rather than hiding from God, we like the psalmist should hide in God. Proverbs 18:10 says:   The name of the Lord is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.     Throughout the Psalms this security and safety, in the Lord is expressed.    The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Psalm 18:2)     He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.  I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!”  For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapperAnd from the deadly pestilence.  He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark. (Psalm 91:1-4)     Fear, anxiety, worry, doubt, and even guilt are deadly snares, lies from the devil to try to separate us from God. We need to hide in God not from Him.  

The Psalm ends saying:    Many are the sorrows of the wicked, But he who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround him.  Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones;
And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart.    The psalmist has come full circle. He began saying:  How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!  How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!   Like a circle, God’s love is never ending. His faithfulness, His loving kindness is everlasting. Our sin is not and was not hidden from Him and yet:  God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)    For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16)   We should no longer deceive ourselves, trying neither to hide our sin nor to deny that we have sin in our lives.

Like the psalmist may we say:      I acknowledge my sin to You, And my iniquity I do not hide; “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”  and You forgive the guilt of my sin. Thank You heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ; precious Holy Spirit; You forgive both my sin and the guilt of that sin. I choose to run to You and hide in Your love, mercy and grace.    Amen