Mean Thoughts of God

I liked this from The Puritan's Woodshop:

It is from mean thoughts of God that you are not convinced that you have by your sins deserved his eternal wrath and curse. If you had any proper sense of the infinite majesty, greatness, and holiness of God, you would see, that to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, and there to have no rest day nor night, is not a punishment more than equal to the demerit of sin.-You would not have so good a thought of yourselves; you would not be so clean and pure in your own eyes; you would see what vile, unworthy, hell-deserving, creatures you are. If you had not little thoughts of God, and were to consider how you have set yourselves against him-how you have slighted him, his commandments and threatenings, and despised his goodness and mercy, how often you have disobeyed, how obstinate you have been, how your whole lives have been filled up with sin against God-you would not wonder that God threatens to destroy you for ever, but would wonder that he hath not done it before now.

-Jonathan Edwards, The Works of, Volume 2, From a sermon on divine sovereignty

Edwards’ sharp reproof cuts to the heart. Too often, most often, we think highly of ourselves while our perspective on God waxes cold with contempt because of our little thoughts of God. While it is true that we need to be saved, we need to be saved by God, not from ourselves, but from God Himself.