King David said in Psalms 51:19-12:
“Make in me a pure heart, O God, and
make again a steadfast spirit within me. ……and give to me a willing spirit…”
David was the King of Israel. Not only
that, he was a godly man who wrote a good portion of the songs recorded in the
book of Psalms. The Bible declared that David was a "man after God's own
heart." But David was also human,
full of failure and shortcomings. One of the things I love about the Bible is
that it is not "sanitized."
It's all there... the good, the bad and the ugly. The story leading up
to Psalm 51 is one of the more ugly moments recorded in the Bible, but it shows
how we can return to God and find mercy.
David had sinned. I mean... REALLY
sinned. He'd lusted after another man's wife, slept with her and gotten her
pregnant, tried to cover up what happened with lies and manipulation. When that
did not work, the end result was David ordered that things happen on the
battlefield so that the man was killed in war. In essence, David was guilty of murder.
God sent His prophet to basically tell
David that He (God) had seen everything that had happened and He was not happy
with David. Only then did David admit his sin and ask for God's forgiveness. Psalm 51 is written about David's prayer to
God after this confrontation with the prophet.
David confesses his sin to God and asks
for forgiveness. And then he asks God to make in him a pure heart and a steady
faithful spirit. David asks that God give him a willing spirit.
God did forgive David, but He told
David that some bad things would be coming his way in the future because of the
sin he did. And THIS is what I wanted to write about just briefly... Yes... God
will forgive us of our sin, but there will ALWAYS be consequences to our sin.
In other words, there will be things that happen as a result of our actions and
choices. Ironically, Newton's Third Law
of Physics states that "For every
action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." This is true in this regard as well. When we
do something... there is a reaction. And
when it comes to spiritual matters, even though God forgives, the fact is that
the things that we do and choices that we make will still produce a reaction
that WILL occur. When we sin, that sin causes (or sets in motion) other things
to happen.
If a woman gets pregnant, she cannot
get "un-pregnant." If you murder someone you cannot bring that person
back. If you commit a crime, even if God forgives you, there is still
punishment that comes due to laws in the land.
At times our sin hurts people and they are angry and/or don't trust
us. Just because God forgive you does
not mean that person's mistrust for you or anger toward you ceases. God does
not wipe all of that away just because He forgives you. I have often counseled
with those who have had an affair, confessed that before God and their spouse
and then been just blown away because the spouse did not forgive as easily as
God did. I often have to tell people that there are certain consequences for
what they have done, and just because God forgives does not mean that your
spouse will. I mean, we hope they eventually can and that a marriage can be
salvaged... but that is NOT always the case.
The purpose of my writing all this is
simply to say this: All of us have our temptations, weaknesses and problems
with sin and doing wrong. This is part of our human nature. And yes... we can
pray like David, confess our sin and ask God to make in us a clean heart and
that He would make our spirits to be steady and faithful. And God's Word tells
us that if we confess our sin that He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sin and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness. For that... I say "Thank you
Jesus!"
But for many, that promise leads some
people to think it is OK to go out and continue to sin because God, who is rich
in forgiveness and mercy will forgive them. The problem is... these people fail
to consider that there is always a consequence for sin. Always. And they are stunned when they find
themselves in legal trouble, or they come home and find the wife packed up and
gone. Or they are angry at others who no longer have any trust in them. They blame God when they cannot pay their
bills when they drank their money away or spent it foolishly rather than buying
food for their family. We would do well to think before we sin, that not only
does our sin cause a separation between us and God, the cause and effect of sin
can destroy our lives. We can be forgiven and lose everything.
So much of the time we go about our day
we never pray and ask God for his strength to keep us that day from wrong and
for strength to do right. We just think we can go through the day, make
decisions, do our work and never think about God until the end of the day and
then ask Him to forgive us for the sins we committed that day. That's NOT how God operates.
God is willing to come near to those
who call and invite Him to come near to them. God wants to make us strong...
strong enough to overcome sin. But He comes to those who want Him.
It is important for us to see our need
and weakness so that we will call on God and will not try to live life in our
own strength. Most of the time David obeyed God and tried to do what was right.
Then one day he let temptation draw him deeper and deeper into sinful lust,
thinking, planning and then putting into action the fruit of his sinful
thinking. My point is, it can happen to
any of us, if we do not guard our hearts, and we will find ourselves wondering,
"How did I ever come to this place?"
Thankfully, David came to his senses and
refused to let his guilt and shame keep him from coming to God. David
saw that he needed God’s forgiveness and He needed God’s strength to stay on
the right path.
So many times, when we sin we want to
punish ourselves. We feel such shame that we do not even want to come to God
and admit what we have done. We feel we are too bad for God to forgive us. David
shows us how God is like a loving Father who is just waiting for us to confess
our sin. He is waiting and wanting to forgive us. But it is up to us to make
that move.
God is wanting for us to not only
confess our sin, but for us to invite Him to be our strength so we can live in
a right way and not fall into sin again. We can learn from David’s example.
When we sin, turn to God right away and ask for forgiveness and ask God to help
us to stay strong and to stay away from doing sin again and again.
1 comment:
Wow thats a word I was telling someone about that same thing. I was talking to a young lady who got pregnant and wanted to abort the baby which she still did. she said she ask God for forgiveness i told her even though she ask for forgiveness there will still be a punishment for the act that she will commit. She had a choice to keep it and let God help her put she decided to take matters into her own hands and went and abort the baby.
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