Thursday, October 29 2020 Devotional
"Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression."
Psalms 19:12-13
The Bible tells us “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
It also tells us “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind...” (Jeremiah 17:10)
God alone knows the heart of every person. He knows our secret thoughts. What we ourselves find impossible to understand about the inner workings of our own heart, God knows. So we confess as sin these secret thoughts and desires that we can’t fully understand and we ask Him to cleanse us from these “secret faults”.
Presumptuous sins are sins that we commit knowingly, presuming upon God’s grace, assuring ourselves even as we commit them. “After all, God will forgive me.”
Presumption sins are dangerous because sin is addictive. These “little” compromises quickly lead to bigger sins and elaborate cover-up strategies that we have to keep in place, and soon dominate our lives in a tangled web of deceit.
That’s why we ask God to keep us back from presuming upon His grace so that these “little” sins can never have dominion over us. “Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.” Little compromises lead to great transgressions.
Lord, You know how I struggle with sins known only to You, in the secret place of my own heart, or when I think I can get away with them because no one else will ever know. Forgive my presumption, for Jesus’ sake. Cleanse my innermost thoughts and desires, so that I can truly love You and serve You from the heart. Amen.
Pastor Dan Giles