Through God's Eyes
This verse ends Psalm 7; the context of this psalm is David being betrayed by fellow Israelites. He takes refuge in God, he asks God to come up against his unrighteous adversaries, and he asks for his own judgement if he is in the wrong. The ESV Transformation Bible commentary speaks to the last, saying, "David invites God to scrutinize his conscience (7:3-5). David can make that bold request because he trusts in the righteousness of his Redeemer, not in his own spotless character." It goes on to say that God's righteousness is our shield.
We have so much freedom in this reality. In the truth that we are not led or judged or protected by our own righteousness but by the perfect righteousness of God.
When it comes to self-examination, to seeing ourselves rightly, we have to start with the Lord. We can't see ourselves clearly when we look for ourselves, when we make Scripture about us, when we center ourselves. Because when we do that, we will always make light of our sin and justify ourselves and yet simultaneously we will be crushed by the weight of our own wickedness when we can't hide from it.
One of the reasons we don't want to look at ourselves through God is because we can't hide from our sins in His presence. And yet in ourselves we cannot bear the weight of calling sin sin and calling ourselves sinners. And of that not only being a blanket term we apply with some superficial meaning to ourselves but it instead being a reality that conveys the true depths of our depravity. We can't bear giving our sin real weight. Knowing how far we fall short of holiness. It is truly a chasm we cannot even begin to bridge. Too deep, too wide, too long, too impossible. But when we look through God, our vision doesn't stop there.
The bad news ushers us even more beautifully into the good news. The news that the Almighty, All-Sufficient God bridged that divide. That He descended from heaven in the person of the Son to save us. That God the Father sacrificed His Son. That God the Son was willing to lay down His life. That we are redeemed, renewed, resurrected with Christ into eternal life. That we are forgiven and beloved. That Christ's righteousness has become our own.
So we never need fear condemnation when we are in Christ. We never need fear the weight of our own sin because Jesus took it on for us. We can live free. We can receive conviction. We want conviction, in fact, because when we see ourselves through the righteousness of God, when we start with adoring Him, with knowing Him, with praising Him for who He is, we want more of Him, which means we want to become more like Him.
We grieve what in us is not like God. We want God's heart, and we see God's heart and know His heart. We know His righteousness, and we are moved by it. We are moved by the affliction of our lives, whether caused by the wickedness of others or the wickedness in our own hearts, to give God praise because of who He is and who He remains. Because His righteousness is so good even in the midst of our pain. Because He is holy. Because He is higher. Because He is worthy.
When we look to who God is first, we remember God, and when we remember God, we are affected by God. Too often memory is our biggest problem. The Israelites constantly forgot God and fell out of intimacy and into sin, and we do the same. We put our eyes on our problems, we live for our own ends, and we stop looking at God. We stop remembering what He has done and who He is. We stop beholding Him. We stop dwelling in His beauty. And as such, we stop being turned by it. But when we see Him, when we know Him, He transforms our minds, and as we're washed in His glory and renewed by His presence, as we find ourselves, our very identity, in Him, our hearts are turned to praise.
From that place we continue to know Him and remember Him. We know He is holy. We know He is our shield. We know Him for who He is, and only then can we know ourselves through who He is. It's a cycle that starts with praise and leads us back to praise. Because He is good. Because we are in awe of His character. Because He is worthy no matter who we are or what our situation is. And as we behold Him and see Him and are renewed by dwelling with Him, we begin to see as He does. We see His hand over the world, we see who we are in Him, we stand in awe of our own safety in Him, and we fall back into praise at the sheer audacity of His grace.
He is good. At all times He is good. In all seasons He is good. We need never fear our own hearts being searched by God because our righteousness has never been in us but in the God who redeems us, who forgives us, who fills us, who transforms us. We are free in God to know our sin and to step out of it into His mercy, not His condemnation. We are no longer captives. Too often acknowledging our sin sets us back into the captivity of shame, viewing ourselves through a human lens, when acknowledging sin is actually the very path to the freedom of forgiveness, which is our guarantee in Christ. Repentance is not our condemnation but our renewal.
We can pray as the psalmist does, "search me and know me," knowing that He already has, that He already does, and that He will lead us in the way everlasting by His faithfulness, by His righteousness, and by His goodness alone.
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