Judge Me According to My Righteousness? (Ps. 7)

[Sung Psalm: 17]

I love how the Psalms do this! Psalm 6 recognized that I deserve judgment – and so I ask God to be gracious.

We have sinned. We deserve many of the bad things that come our way.

But Psalm 7 points out that we do not deserve everything that happens to us! No teenage girl deserves to be kidnapped and forced to marry an Islamic fighter. No one deserves to be publicly slandered for something they didn’t do. No one deserves to be bullied and abused.

So sometimes it is important to say, “No, in this situation, I am innocent!” But that’s not all that Psalm 7 is saying! Otherwise, you’d wind up with two lists: “here are all the situations where I have sinned” (the guilty list), and “there are all the situations where I am in the right” (the innocent list). Sometimes the guilty list would be longer – sometimes the innocent list would be stronger – but that would only produce hopelessness and despair!

How can I be “good enough” for God!?