Scripture reference: Psalm 90, "A prayer of Moses, the man of God"
"The only way to rejoice in grace is to go through the pain of discovering why we need so much grace. The person who thinks that he or she needs little grace never discovers great grace. The person who loves the Lord much is the person who has discovered that, whatever we may be like to one another on the outside, that on the inside we need -- we desperately need -- His grace. And God will never allow us out of this rhythm, because it's the rhythm of the whole of the Christian life: I discover His grace, and in discovering His grace I begin to see more and more the need that my sin brings to my life for that grace. And so the cycle continues; it's the theme of every passage in the Scripture, every book in the Bible, every message that's preached from any genuinely Christian pulpit: God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And as He is merciful to me, His grace begins to taste like the sweetest thing in the world.
Why does grace not mean much to me? Ah, because my sin does not mean much to me. How will grace mean much to me? Oh, says Moses, when in the light of God's holiness I begin to see the depth of my need for it.
...At the end of the day, no matter who I am, what I have done, what my accomplishments may or may not have been, at the end of the day I am utterly empty-handed, apart from the riches of God's fullness, to satisfy my deepest needs in my personal emptiness."
"The Believer's Math," January 1, 2006, a.m.,
First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina