Do you ever fall on your knees and cry out to the Lord, "Thank You for saving me from disaster that I deserved!"?

Do you ever fall on your knees and cry out to the Lord, "Thank You for saving me from disaster that I deserved!"?

There are many who would give anything if they could erase from memory and from their life record some act of willful foolishness or indiscretion. Often it's an act of fornication or adultery, an alluring temptation yielded to, at an unguarded moment, or some really stupid faux pas that is a blot on an otherwise unstained reputation. Then almost immediately afterward comes that horrid sense of guilt and shame. It can be lethal.

Did Christ die because our sins were laid upon Him, or because they were borne within Him? Did He feel the guilt as though it were His own? Was His identification with sinful us, a total one?

We read Isaiah 53:6, "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all"; that's evidence for the "upon" idea. But we also read 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For He made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to BE sin for us." That's evidence for the "within" idea. It wasn't antiseptic poison from the rusty spikes driven through His wrists and ankles that killed Him; it was raw guilt--ours. The burden overwhelmed Him, as though He were indeed the guilty One. This profound truth illuminates the book of Psalms; Christ is all through it, especially the ones that David wrote. Christ's name is "God with us."

If you carry a burden of joy-crushing guilt, remember Psalm 130: "If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared" (vss. 3, 4). You'd think the Psalmist would say, "There is guilt ... that You may be feared." No, it's forgiveness; the overwhelming sense of abounding grace, His bearing your guilt and freeing you from it. All your lifetime thereafter you walk "softly" like Ahab did when he repented of his monstrous crimes (1 Kings 21:27, 28, KJV).

And if the dear Lord has saved you from yourself, you still walk "softly" for you know you have not an iota of righteousness of your own (see Isa. 54:17). You realize the evil you would have done had there been no Savior there to hold you by your hand (cf. Matt. 8:25; 14:30; incidentally, that healthy, self-humbling realization is akin to "corporate repentance").