“Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.” Psalm 19:12-13
I have always thought that I don’t have a big enough view of God. I know the Ten Commandments and I keep the biggies. The little ones, like gossip, I also keep – most of the time. And I hope you can hear the sarcasm in my voice when I call them “little” commandments. In God’s law, there’s no such thing. I like to think there are, because then I don’t have to think of myself as someone who breaks the important laws of God. But aren’t they all important? The problem is, like I said, I don’t have a correct view of God. If I truly realized that He is perfect and there is absolutely no sin in Him, then I might realize that He has zero tolerance for sin in me. Any sin. That makes every sin very important. Of course, we know it’s impossible to not sin and we know He’ll forgive us so it’s not really a big deal, right? I think that this very attitude is one of the willful sins talked about in this verse.
Sin is such a big deal to God that He doesn’t even like the sins of which we’re unaware. We may not understand that something is a sin. I think of the sin of complaining. It’s just making conversation, right? Or venting. Or to be really “Christian” about it, asking for prayer. Besides, everyone does it. So it’s easy to not realize it’s a sin. But this verse is asking God to forgive even those things we don’t realize are sins. The willful sins are a little easier to understand. Those are things we know are sins, but we do them anyway. I looked up the Hebrew root word that was translated “willful sins.” Do you want to know what it means? Not willful and not sins. It means arrogant, proud or haughty. Chew on that for a while! When we commit a willful sin, we’re being prideful. Or to turn it around, being prideful is the very definition of a willful sin. I once heard that there’s only one sin and that’s pride. I’ve never done an exhaustive study to confirm that’s true, but it sure seems like it. When we have enough pride to put ourselves in the place of God, that’s when we attempt to fulfill our fleshly, selfish desires our way rather than follow God’s way.
It sounds like David had a much better view of God than I. He understood that God is a perfect God and He wants His people to be blameless. How is that possible? Well, again, let’s look at the original language. When David says that he will be blameless, he actually means that he’s in the process. It should say that he will be being made blameless. We are in the process of being completed or perfected. Someday, in heaven, we will be made perfect and what a wonderful day that will be! But this is talking about the process of getting to that point. You know what I love about that? Even though I’ve not been perfect up to this point, that doesn’t disqualify me from future perfection. In other words, it’s not “one sin and you’re out.” Our past sins will be wiped away as if they never happened! My prayer for all of us is that God will give each of us a clearer picture of Who He is and who we are in Him. And even better, who we are becoming because of Him.