Undercover

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight; so You are right in Your verdict and justified when You judge.” Psalm 51:3-4

Every child does it at some point. Knowing they are wrong, doing something they shouldn’t do, breaking something valuable, or some other offense against mom or dad, they crawl into a corner and bury themselves under a blanket and hide. And that notion continues with us throughout our lives. We see “cover-ups” on the news, people hiding sin, hiding crimes, hiding misdeeds. And who hasn’t taken their wrongs and “swept them under the rug” away from prying eyes?

Trying to cover up our sin goes back to Adam and Eve, the very first sinners, who covered themselves with leaves when they realized they were naked in their sin. We practice denial, arguing that our sin doesn’t really exist and that there is no objective code of right and wrong with God. Or we may practice concealment, where we know that something is wrong, but we keep others from seeing it. And yet another ploy is to redefine sin as a “mistake,” or maybe reasoning that what we’re doing now isn’t really wrong anymore because the culture has changed so much from Bible times. The truth is, each of these coverings does nothing to alleviate our sin problem.

Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who covers his transgressions shall not prosper.” God knows our sins, and at the heart, all of our wrongdoing is against God. But thankfully there is a way to uncover our sin, and in doing so, find it fully covered by God. Through Jesus we have “propitiation” for our sins (Romans 3:25). By virtue of His death on the cross, Jesus doesn’t merely cover our sins. He takes them away. Laid bare before Christ, our sins are paid for fully on the cross, and we can finally come out from under the covers, free to live for God without the fear of sin’s punishment.

Jesus, thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. Thank You for taking away my sin so that I don’t have to hide or be afraid of sin’s penalty anymore. Help me to live for You, and may Your Spirit continually be uncovering things in my life that do not please You, so that I can grow more like You each day. In Your name I pray, amen.