David no doubt thought he got away with his sin by cleverly covering his tracks. But God knew otherwise.

“Be sure your sin will find you out,” we are warned (Numbers 32:23). No matter how well I think I’ve covered my tracks, the reality is that the sin will track me down. That’s Satan’s strategy. He sucks you into sin, and then he makes sure that the sin surfaces to expose you, to humiliate and condemn you. After nine or ten months of thinking he got away with this sin, David had to face up to its repercussions.

I pray that the Lord might remind us again that the most dangerous place to be in spiritual life is kicking back, pulling away, saying, “I taught Sunday school for years. I paid my dues. It’s time for me to let someone else fight the battles and do the work.” When that mentality creeps in, you’re being set up to be taken down. The safest place to be is on the front lines, fully engaged in serving the Lord, in battling against the enemy. May God help us to truly learn the lessons we read about in His Word.

Through all of this, David goes down in history as one of the greatest of the greats because he had a heart for God. Yes, he failed miserably, but there was something about his heart that God loved. The Son of David said that the one who is forgiven much loves much (Luke 7:47). It is when we realize how sinful we are that we realize how merciful God is. And such realization causes us to love Him all the more.

God sees the heart. May He see in you a heart that is amazed by His mercy, grateful for His grace, a heart that loves Him passionately and loves to seek His face. If the choice is between a congregation that errs constantly but loves God passionately and a congregation of self-righteous Pharisees, I’ll take the former. And, according to Jesus, so would God.