GRACE-FORGIVENESS (part 10)
What is the process for receiving forgiveness?
Look at this verse in Psalm 32:
Blessed is the one whose transgressions
are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
(Psalm 32:1)
How can we be blessed by what we read in Psalm 32:1?
“I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have
not hidden. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to
the Lord,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin”
(Psalm 32:5)
David gives us three ways he responded:
I acknowledged my sin to You.
I have not hidden.
I said, I will confess my transgressions.
David’s three responses to his sin are all wrapped up in the idea of being
transparent and honest with God. He stopped being silent and hiding his
sin. Instead, he acknowledged his sin, unmasked it, and then confessed it.
When we are honest with the Lord, He promises to hear us.
For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and
abundant in mercy to all those who call upon Your name,
(Psalm 86:5)
Confession is about having a transparent honesty before God. David knows
painfully well how he manipulated and used Bathsheba, how she had been
made a widow (because David arranged the death of her husband, Uriah),
and how she was now the bride of the one who orchestrated her husband’s
death.
David knows that because of his actions, Uriah had been deprived of
his very life. We need to remember that the little boy born to David
and Bathsheba, was yet another victim of David’s ruthlessness. Several
people had suffered as a result of David’s sins.
David understood what we must understand, and that is, that confession
is the first step in receiving forgiveness. David recognized that at the root
of all his sins (from what we might consider a petty offense, to adultery and
murder), he was an insult to the God who created him, and had sustained
him every moment of his life.
Note:
Of course all sin is sin against God and with His
justice system, none of them should be ranked as ‘petty’.
Before sin claims any victim, it’s already been an injury to the person deity
of God. If you sin against me, I can forgive you personally, but I can’t give
you that deeper level of forgiveness that you can receive from God. I can’t
remove the offense against the Lord…only He can do that.
The world would like to pressure us to dismiss the category of sin altogether,
but there’s no way to be made right, unless we first acknowledge the reality
of what we’ve done. If we fail to recognize our sin, as sin, then our desire to
receive God’s forgiveness is hopeless.
If we keep posturing, and if we keep manipulating what we did to make it
look better than it really is (to the point of not being a sin before God), we
will never sense and experience the reality of His forgiveness.
But, we can get on our knees before God in the privacy of our room, pour
out our heart to Him, tell Him what we’ve done, ask Him to forgive us, and
He will do it. We need to remember that God doesn’t play games. We might
play games, but He doesn’t. Look at the promise of His forgiveness in the
first two verses of Psalm 32.
Blessed is the one whose transgressions
are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
(Psalm 32:1)
Blessed is the one whose sin the LORD does not
count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.
(Psalm 32:2)
Can you sense the expression of joy in these two verses? The word “blessed”
is another word for happy. Happy are those whose sins are forgiven. When
we consider how incredible and revolutionary these promises are, our lives
are bound to change forever.
We need to be able to grasp the fact that when God forgives us, He
welcomes us into His presence, where we can find the fullness of joy
and happiness. David’s words about forgiveness appear in the Old
Testament for us to read, and when we do, we can understand that
the entire Bible is for our benefit. It should serve as a reminder to
us that we should not restrict our Bible reading to only the New
Testament.
(watch for the 11th and final part of the series tomorrow….)
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