40 Days of Prayer, Day 9
Day 9, Monday, August 29
“Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Psalm 51:1-2
The Character of God and the Confidence of the Sinner
David opened this psalm by begging for grace. “Be gracious to me, O God…” The first line was the request, but in the next line David appealed to the character of God, “According to Your lovingkindness.” The very God whose holiness and righteousness established the law, is also the same God whose character of love and grace gave David a glimmer of hope. David had violated the law of God in several ways throughout his life. However, this moment of sin, the committing of adultery and murder, gave clarity to the seriousness of David’s rebellion against God. God is a God of relationships. God’s holy character is now on a collision course with God’s grace. This collision comes to infinite horror and beauty in the cross of Jesus Christ. In the cross of Christ, the justice of God for David’s rebellion comes into a head on collision with the grace of God. Christ bore David’s sin on the cross, preserving the justice of God. God in Christ offered the forgiveness of sins, preserving the grace of God. Though Christ had not yet come when David committed adultery and murder, according to Romans 3, God looked ahead to the cross of Christ for the sins committed by individuals like Abraham, Moses and David. For us, God looks back to the cross of Christ for our sins. In Christ our sins are forgiven by our righteous and gracious God. In Christ, just as David, we too appeal to the character of God. He is holy and thus we are accountable for our sins. He is also gracious and offers freely to us the forgiveness of sins.
It was the character of God that drove David to the feet of God. Grace and mercy were surely undeserved for David but he flung Himself on the love and kindness of God. He clung to the compassion of God. The seriousness of David’s sin in his adultery and murder provided clarity for David. The egregious nature of his sin clarified for David his desperate need for the compassion of God. However, in reality, all of us have this same need. Since God is holy and just, He must hold us accountable for our sin, even the sins we perceive to be far less serious. This truth applies to the King of Israel caught in adultery. This truth applies to the church going, Bible reading, teenage caught in a bad attitude toward their parent. This truth applies to the one caught in the conspiracy to commit murder. This truth applies to the grandmother who regularly attends Sunday School but struggles with jealousy or pride. Sin separates us from God. Sin separates us from Him because He is holy. But just as David, we throw ourselves on the grace of God. God is a God of relationships and He longs to forgive the contrite hearted person.
Prayer Focus
God, I confess that you are absolutely holy. You are justified when You hold me to a standard of righteousness. Oh God, I read in the Bible that You are also a God of great mercy, grace, compassion and kindness. I confess that I am in need of Your mercy. There are sins I have committed against You that come to my mind. But I also know that many of my sins against You I have committed without even stopping long enough to see my actions as sin. I throw myself on Your mercy. Thank you for taking my sin away through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Amen.
From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
God gives encouragements to comfort those who are cast down; and such are the broken-hearted; as for them that are whole, they need not the physician. They are the broken in spirit that stand in need of God’s encouragements; physicians are those of no esteem except with those that feel their sickness; and this is one reason why God is so little accounted of in the world, even because they have not been made sick by the wounding stroke of God. But now when a man is wounded, has his bones broken, or is made sick, and laid at the grave's mouth, who is of that esteem with him as is an able physician? What is so much desired as are the comforts and suitable supplies of the skilful physician in those matters. And thus it is with the broken-hearted; he needs, and God has prepared for him plenty of the comforts of heaven, to secure and relieve his sinking soul. Wherefore such a one lies under all the promises that have secured in them, and consolation for men, sick and desponding under the sense of sin and the heavy wrath of God; and they, says God, shall be refreshed and revived. Yes, they are designed for them; he has therefore broken their hearts, he has therefore wounded their spirits, that he might make them apt to relish his reviving encouragements, that he might minister to them his reviving comforts.