God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
Just as the sinner’s despair of any hope from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer’s growth in grace.
It was your great American wit, Mark Twain, who once said, 'Man is the only animal that blushes, and the only animal that needs to.' We are ashamed, are we not, of things we've done in the past. Nobody is free who is unforgiven. Instead of being able to look God in the face or to look one another in the face, we want to run away and hide when our conscience troubles us.
