December 12 – Not Sensible of the Weight of Sin

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“My iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.” Psalm 38:4

It is a sure sign that a man is awakened out of his sleep, when he discovers the error of his dream. In the drawing up of water out of a deep well, so long as the bucket is under water, we feel not the weight of it. But as soon as it comes above water, it begins to hang heavy on the hand; and if a man dives under water, he feels not its weight, though there may be many tons of it over his head. Whereas a small vessel, full of the same water, would be very burdensome to him and make him soon grow weary of it. In like manner, so long as a man is overhead in sin, he is not sensible of the weight of sin. It is not troublesome to him. But when he begins to come out of that state of sin wherein he lay and lived before, then sin begins to hang heavy upon him, and he groans under its weight. So long as sin is in the will, the proper seat of sin, a man feels not the weight of it — but it is sport and pastime to him to do evil. It is therefore a good sign that sin is removed out of its chair of state, when it becomes burdensome to us; and such a sense of sin may well be considered as an entrance into a state of grace.

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)