Truth in Psalms
Written after David's sin with Bathsheba--
51:1} Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to thy lovingkindness
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies
blot out my transgressions.
**
Sinners.
None escape from being sinners, not one.
But we can be sinners saved by grace.
David, knew God to be forgiving, and loving, merciful. David lived in a time where the old testament wrath of God was alive and well in the sense the focus was upon God and the covenant and breaking the commandments of God, more so than the forgiveness of Jesus. Jesus was still future in David's time, the Messiah was a dream to be realized, a hope to cling to.
David prayed to God for mercy as he acknowledged God's lovingkindness.
David knew God to be love and embodied in that love was mercy.
God's mercy, God's wrath is no different then the mercy and wrath of Jesus. If you've seen the son, you've seen the father, Jesus said that. Their principles, their beliefs, their morals are the same. Even today you'll find father and son businesses where the son incorporates the same high standards of a father, continuing a father's beliefs in all they do and hoping to pass that on to their son. At no time did Jesus ever denounce His father in any way whatsoever.
David knew the God of Love, and he recognized his own very sin-filled state.
{51:2} Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
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Only God can wash us throughly and cleanse us from sin.
{51:3} For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
**
Like any good ten step program to recovery the first step is admitting you have a problem, a need and that you need help. David wasn't covering up the sin, he was telling it like it was. He was acknowledging his sins, and proclaiming that they were something he couldn't forget. If something is ever before you then it's certainly not tucked neatly away anywhere, right?
{51:4} Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight:
that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
**
When we sin, we are transgression a law.
If there were no law, there'd be no sin.
If it weren't a crime to murder, there'd be no crime when someone was murdered. Only because we call it a crime is it wrong.
When we sin we are breaking the law and we have to ask ourselves, whose law?
If it's man's law then we are accountable to man for our sin, right? If I run a red light I'm sinning against a manmade law.
If it's God's law then we are accountable to God for our sin, right?
David knew when he sinned it was against God. The evil he did was done and God knew it was evil.
God is justified when he judges us all.
The law is before us and when we break it, God knows and has the right to judge us for our evil ways.
{51:5} Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
**
Conceived in sin.
Ultimately our heritage is sin.
We inherit sin from our parents all the way back to Adam and Eve.
David was no different. His tendency towards sin existed in him as it does in all of us from before birth. No one is born sinless, save Jesus, and even He was tempted just like we are, only there was no sin in Him at all. Born of woman and God, Jesus took on our humanity and sinned not. His being born of God kept Him from inheriting the sin of Adam and Eve, and being sinful in that respect, but it did not keep Him from the temptation to sin. It's only because He didn't sin that He can offer us His mercy and grace, His truth. He wasn't magically protected from sinning. He wasn't given some magical protection spell. He was tempted to sin and while tempted He didn't yield to sin, but called upon His Father and remained sinless. To say temptation wasn't the same for Him would be a lie, if anything it was worse for Him than for us.
Jesus overcame!
He wasn't gifted with magical abilities.
Jesus had to overcome.
Jesus had to have the exact same - or worse - temptation to sin as we do, and yet He had to remain sinless to save us, to prove that God's love is powerful enough to overcome the lies of Satan.
Jesus had to suffer the penalty of sin, of sin which He never committed.
David knew sin existed in himself and didn't try to put himself above it at all. He also knew that God's will was for him to not sin.
{51:6} Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts:
and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
**
God desires truth in our hearts, in our lives. Truth and that truth is His love, His mercy where we find grace. God wants that truth in all of us, He wants us to desire that truth, for it to be real within us. As real as sin is, so is truth. What makes us free creatures is the power of choice. Truth exists even if one never sins. Sin exists and we have the truth to set us free.
{51:7} Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean:
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
**
Yes, we can be purged and sinless, we can be cleaned from our stains of sin, but only through God's grace, God's washing- we can never clean ourselves the way God can clean us, never. Ever hear of snow blindness? The snow is so white the sun's reflection upon it can blind a person. Whiter than snow. Can we truly imagine that?
{51:8} Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
**
Again the chastening of the Lord shouldn't be despised at all. We need to rejoice and be glad, be joyous as we are corrected by God knowing He loves us and that is why we are broken, so we may mend in Him. We chastise our own children out of love, God loves us more than we can ever love our own.
{51:9} Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
{51:10} Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
{51:11} Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
{51:12} Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
**
Amazing! So amazing.
{51:13} Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
{51:14} Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation:
and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.
{51:15} O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
{51:16} For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it:
thou delightest not in burnt offering.
{51:17} The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit:
a broken and a contrite heart,
O God, thou wilt not despise.
**
A broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart all all God needs. The realization that we depend upon Him for our lives everlasting, that His ways are love beyond our comprehension, this is what God desires. A heart and spirit of truth, of love, of God. Oh that we could do ANYTHING to please God, we could give Him our all but without a spirit and heart broken to the realization that God is love, righteous, and our hope eternal everything we do means nothing at all. There isn't a single sacrifice we can make that would be greater than our broken spirit, than our broken and contrite hearts. Do you see? God desires something we ALL can give to Him, our hearts, our spirit, our lives. We don't have to have riches, we don't have to be brilliant, we don't have to have a college degree in theology, we don't have to have anything that we don't ALL have the ability to give to God, not one thing. I don't need a priest, a pastor, a Pope, to pray me to heaven. In fact none of them can give God what He wants from me, only I have what He wants, only You have what He wants.
While the sacrificial system was a type to point to the true, and necessary to teach that sin requires sacrifice if it's to be forgiven, it wasn't perfect. God could accept the sacrifices offered but only if the spirit with which they were giving was a true spirit, a repenting, contrite spirit. Not a single burnt offering was acceptable to God without a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, acknowledging the sinfulness and helplessness without God's grace. A person could offer a whole herd of burnt offerings and it would do him no good if his heart wasn't truly contrite.
May God help us all to find our grace and hope in Him now and always and not look to ourselves to work for it in anyway. We're sinners saved by grace. We're sinners that cling to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for doing for us what we could never do. With our spirits broken, with our hearts broken and contrite we bow before our King and offer Him our lives and know that our Heavenly Father through the mercy and sacrifice of His Only Son will accept us to Him and we can become sons of God, adopted to Him now and forever.
Amen.
Romans {8:12} Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
{8:13} For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
{8:14} For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
{8:15} For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
{8:16} The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
{8:17} And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
Amen.
This is truth.
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