Wednesday, March 13
Scripture: Psalm 51: 6-9
6 But you [God] desire honesty from the womb,
teaching me wisdom even there.
7 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Oh, give me back my joy again;
you have broken me—
now let me rejoice.
9 Don’t keep looking at my sins.
Remove the stain of my guilt.
Some thoughts:
Imagine! God wants us to tell the truth even from the womb, (can also mean “inner parts.”) David prays for wisdom from the beginning of life. Then he says, “Purify me from my sins” the literal translation reads “purify me with the hyssop branch.” You’ll recall it was a hyssop branch that was used to put the blood on the door posts at the great exodus from Egypt (Ex 12:22). Here David may be alluding to that event in asking God to pass over and wash him clean by the blood of the lamb, even as the Israelites were spared as the angel of death passed over them. David desires the joy of a clean heart, of being forgiven. His desire is to be guilt free. He does not want to be reminded again and again of is past sins—that’s one of the devil’s joys, throwing past failures in our faces again and again. When you are haunted by past confessed sin, recognize where those thoughts are coming from; it’s not the Lord. It is also David who wrote, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.” (Psalm 103:12)
Why is it that we can so easily live in duplicity? There is either a stubbornness, pride, or arrogance that has trouble admitting when we are wrong or have failed. We have a dozen reasons why it was not our fault; why we can be excused for missing the mark; or why we should be granted leniency in this circumstance. In this Scripture passage, the “inner parts” can also be translated “inner being,” in other words our heart, our soul. The Lord wants us to be truthful with ourselves. Why are we reluctant or even afraid to face the truth? When the truth penetrates as to who we really are from God’s perspective, look what follows! Our heart gets a lesson in wisdom and God cleanses our sin completely.
Look what this pericope tells us about God. He wants us to be honest with him, complete transparency. Desire truth. And these are acts God can do on our behalf: teach us, cleanse us, wash us, crush, or break (discipline) us, completely remove our sin, like an ink blotter soaks up and removes ink. All of this is the action of God on my behalf when I am truthful with God. He is the one who does the washing. We physically revive. For unconfessed sin pays a heavy physical and spiritual toll. It eats away at us. Our relationship to God deadens. Confession gets a load off our chest. It is freeing. When that happens, joy returns. Jesus dealt with the truth all the way to the end of his earthly life with the result ending in the greatest joy ever. Are you telling God the whole truth about yourself today?
Music: “Come Let Us Reason” Ken Medema
Prayer:
Dear God, make me think about what I’m doing with my mind, with my body, with my habits, with my study, with my friends, with my hopes, with my parents, with my faith, with life. Amen. —Carl Burke