When Feeling Bad Leads to Feeling Better

Let’s read the beginning of psalm 14:  The fool has said in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt,
They have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.  2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.  3 They have all turned aside,
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one. 

Why would God say these kinds of words about you and me?  What is God saying about each of us?  Do we understand this?  Are we offended by it?  Am I offended by this?  I guess I’m not offended by it because it is the truth.  One of the things I appreciate about the Bible is that God sort of “tells it like it is”.  I might not always like to hear that but I always need to hear it.  The depth of man’s sin is meant to help us see our incredible need for God’s grace.  If I don’t think I need to be forgiven of anything, why would I ask for forgiveness?  But the Bible reminds me of how much of a sinner I am…and how much in need of a Savior I am.  Sure, we can do good things.  We can say good things.  We can help people.  We can speak and act so that in the eyes of man we are “good”.  But not in the eyes of God.

Think of it this way.  A six year old baseball player can hit a ball and we can say, “that was a great hit”.  And we would use the same language for a major league player…”that was a great hit”.  But there is a BIG difference in the hit.  The first one might have travelled about 50 feet and barely left the ground.  The major leaguer’s hit might have travelled 400 feet and sailed high in to the sky.  When we do something “good”, we are like the little leaguer.  But the little leaguer’s hit is not “good” when compared to the 400 foot drive.  Our good works are “good” in the eyes of man but not “good” when compared with the standard of God.  Our good works pale in comparison to God’s holiness and our good works can’t come close to comparing to all of the sin in our lives.

God writes words like these in Psalm 14 to make us feel bad; but only so that we can feel better by turning to Jesus Christ for forgiveness.  When we trust in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of our sin and eternal life, we hit a HOME RUN!