AM I COVERED?

At some point, all people of any level of faith question whether something they have done and consider a sin is, will be or can be forgiven by God. We've all done and said things we regret, some of us with consistent regularity. We may reason that surely God will not forgive the same sins we commit over and over.
There is some pretty consistent theology for that line of reasoning. When you look at God's reactions to sin committed by his own people in the Old Testament, you can end up with a conclusion that you are so bad God is fed up with your continuing rebellion against his word. I have had this discussion many times with some truly good people who never feel "good enough". They have assumed that God's grace isn't good enough or powerful enough to overcome their sins, so at some point they adopted an attitude of "what's-the-use".
Paul addresses this attitude of inevitability - "I can't do it anyway so why go through the bother of even trying!" At Romans 4, he uses Abraham as the prime example of God's forgiveness and actually quotes David, who wrote, "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered, blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count sin." (Psalm 32:1-2) Following this quote Paul goes into a long explanation of how the grace of God worked for Abraham AND for all who have the faith of Abraham. God did not declare Abraham righteous because he was circumcised but because he was a man of faith. Paul then draws this conclusion: "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Sin is always a transgression of the will of God and its always a serious thing to ignore God's will. However, because of Jesus Christ, we "have peace with God" and can always know that God's grace is greater than any sin we can commit. That doesn't mean His grace is unconditional forgiveness, but if we adopt the faith of Abraham and David, there is no sin that goes uncovered. HALLELUJAH!

"THERE IS NO GOD!" REALLY!?

I have found it curiously interesting that Psalms 53 and 14 are virtually verbatim. As I have studied the seventy plus Psalms that David authored I have seen many of his characteristic phrases repeated, but as far as I have seen so far, these two are the only instance where he reproduced the same song. Maybe he felt the worshipers didn't get the message the first time and was compelled to make the point again. Or, possibly something was happening at the time that he felt a strong motivation to call attention to the message of this song. He makes his point at the beginning, "The fool says in his heart 'There is no God'". Psalm 53:1 ESV
Being a careful student of Jewish history, the Apostle Paul quotes this Psalm at Romans 3:10, stitching it together with about seven others to make the same point to his own generation, "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." All of that seems to be the result of an assumption that 'There is no God', so there are no rules, life is to be lived as you wish!
I wonder if this is how God sees his human family, ignorant, obstinate, self serving and totally oblivious to who He is. David's original assessment covers a lot of ground all the way down to Paul and the church at Rome, and even to the present day. When we compare the Biblical record with the archeological record, humans seem to have always worshiped some kind of god of their own making. Yahweh warned his own people repeatedly that creating their own gods or worshiping the gods created by other nations would only lead to their destruction. They failed to listen and now the nation of Israel still fights for its survival in the midst of constant war with one neighbor or another.
Have we really learned nothing in all the centuries between David and Paul? The brother did not mince his words when he quoted David's strong assessment of the human family that ignores God. It's still true, only "the fool says in his heart, there is no God!" But Paul uses David's words to make an even stronger point.
He follows up the Psalms quotes with an affirmation that "the law" was incapable of producing justification even for the Jews who believed in it. In spite of the rules God had given them to live by, the huge truth remained that, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", both Jew and Gentile.
Now get this, regardless of the law and its requirements, all are now "justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Romans 3:24
THAT is how God sees the human family, at least that is His intent for all of us, but the choice is still up to me. I can go on living like a fool, or I can move into God's house, be adopted into His forever family and have a life that every breathing member of the human race should want more than their next breath.
David also wrote: "Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life!" Psalm 54:4 HALLELUJAH!