I encourage you to take a moment to stop and think about how gracious and merciful our God is. It was impossible for us to elevate to him so he came down to us. And because he is a holy God and sin cannot exist in his presence, he provided a way for us, even in our sin, to exist with him. We couldn’t pay the wages of our sin, so he sent his son to die for us. He did all of the work, felt all of the pain, and he thought up a plan where all we have to do is receive. Like a judge looking for a legal loophole, God found a way for us to avoid getting what we deserve. Psalm 103 verse 10 goes on to say:
"he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities."
No, he doesn’t. Because if he did, we’d all deserve eternal damnation; we’d all deserve hell. And despite our sin nature, which on our best day still causes us to stumble and fall in our efforts to be holy and righteous, God does not treat us as our sins deserve. I’ve heard it said that grace is getting what we don’t deserve, and mercy is not getting what we do deserve. This verse from Psalms proves this saying to be true. So, I encourage you to praise and thank God with all of your heart for what he did for us. From the instant we were born, we’d lost. No one is righteous enough to stand in God’s presence, not one. But he loved us so much that he did not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. That is what we call the “free gift”. Because the blood of Jesus makes this possible.
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God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. There is nothing we can do on our own to earn eternity in heaven. Nothing. But by God’s grace he gave us what we didn’t deserve; the perfect spotless blood of his only son to cover our sins. And by God’s mercy we will not get what we do deserve, which is eternal hell where the bible says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Why? The verse in Psalm 103 states it quite well. “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities”. This is amazing grace. This is incredible mercy.