Psalm 63

"Who will ever notice?"

That line from verse 5 is at the root of a lot of sin.

"If I'm not hurting anyone, what difference does it make?"

If we don't hurt anyone and no one notices, isn't sin like that proverbial tree falling in the forest. If no one's there to hear it, does the tree falling make a sound?

The answer is yes ... especially when it comes to our morals falling. God hears it. God sees in secret. But perhaps that shouldn't be our primary concern. Our greater concern is that our soul hears our morals falling.

Our mind can rationalize all kinds of sin: "It's not that bad." "No one will ever know." "They did something to me first." "Everyone else is doing it." David reminds us that the world is sinful, saying, "5 [we] encourage each other to do evil." "If everyone else is doing it, then I'm okay."

Eventually we get to the final rationalization which is "I'm not hurting anybody but me." But you see the truth, don't you? We are hurting ourselves. We're damaging our soul. We're placing a wedge between us and God.

Laying a brick is one of my favorite explanations of sin. "It's just one brick," comes the rationalization. And one brick at a time doesn't seem that bad ... until we look up and realize that we've built a wall between ourselves and others, a wall between ourselves and God.

The Good News is that God is in the demolition business! His greatest desire is to tear down those walls of sin and division.

His greatest challenge ... is us. Our God is gracious. He's constantly giving and forgiving. But to bring the whole wall down, he waits for permission, and the permission starts when we begin to tear down the wall between our self-justifying mind and our God-hungering soul. We need to quit excusing sin and start confessing it. Indeed, we are invited to quit laying bricks and start discovering God's amazing grace.

Rather than a prayer at the end, I'll give you a saying.

In the mornings, I often log onto whoever's browser is open at our house.

At the end of my son Jay's emails is a quote

from one of the greatest preachers of all time Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

Discernment is not a matter of simply telling

the difference between right and wrong;
rather it is telling the difference

between what is right and almost right.