I Want and Need Forgiveness

There is no way in which I can come to know my misery from what I experience in myself, in fellow man or in daily life. 

Yet I have seen that it is very important that I possess a true knowledge of my sins and misery.

• Otherwise I will not turn to God 
• and seek the forgiveness of my sins 
• and redemption from my misery. 

From where, then, shall I come to know my sins and misery?

God must teach me this. And He does. How? 

• God teaches me my sins and misery through the law. 
• When referring to the law, I refer to all the demands which God has set down in His Word. 
• These are summarized in the Ten Commandments and in Matthew 22:37-40. 

In the law I come to see what God requires and what I was originally capable of rendering. 

• I see myself, as I ought to be. 
• And when I examine myself in the mirror of God’s law, 
• then I find that I am not what I ought to be 
• and I do not do what I ought to do. 

By measuring myself by the law of God, 

• I find that I fall terribly short of the obedience which God requires of me.

Deuteronomy 6:5 

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Adapted Excerpt From Van Delden's Only By True Faith