Micah 7:19
19 You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Back in verses 16 and 17 we saw what the end of the story looks like for those who will not willingly trust and worship the Lord. Today we see the opposite ending, for those who cling to the Lord as their saviour and willingly identify as his people. It’s a total contrast. Those of us who are trusting in Jesus receive compassion. We are released from the penalty of our wrongdoing. All our sins, failings and wickedness have been taken away. It’s so obviously a better ending that we might be tempted to congratulate ourselves on being the kind of people that God wanted on his team, or on our great wisdom and forward-thinking for choosing the better future. We might get caught up in the ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ language that we see in these verses, and think that WE are the better people, and THEY have only themselves to blame.
If we’re tempted to think that way, we need to go back to yesterday’s verse again. Verse 18 forms the bridge between the dreadful outcome for God’s enemies and the wonderful outcome for his people. And what was verse 18 full of? It wasn’t full of how much better and wiser we were. It didn’t describe what we did to escape the judgment we deserved. It was totally full of God and how good and forgiving he is. If it wasn’t for the fact that God is by nature merciful to the undeserving, we’d still be carrying our own iniquities, and we would be being trodden underfoot along with our sins.
So let’s praise God again for his compassion and mercy. And let’s ask for his help never to look down on ‘them’ - those who have not yet received the forgiveness that we enjoy - but instead to commit ourselves to sharing with them the good news of God’s mercy in Jesus.
