The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Psalm 51:7,
“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”
After David was confronted by God’s prophet, Nathan, in regard to his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, he appealed to the Lord with the above words. Contrite and full of great regret and remorse for his sin he calls out to God to cleanse and purge him of the sin that became evident in his heart. David seems so heart broken over his sinfulness he doesn’t even ask God to forgive him in this psalm. What he asks of the Lord is for a cleansing and restoration. In verse two he asks the Lord to wash away all of his iniquity and cleanse him from sin. He acknowledges his sin in verse five and confesses he was sinful from birth, even before birth – when he was first conceived by his mother! In verse 3 he acknowledges his sin as something that was ever before him. He wants to be cleansed of it!
I don’t know about you, but I can surely relate to David’s plight and plea here. Sin is something the Lord has chosen not to remove from our hearts at the time of our second birth. When I embraced Jesus Christ in faith I was saved and sealed for heaven. I look at it as a “past-tense” event. But that proclivity to sin remains within me and as David, there are times I feel the need to be cleansed and purged of the sin that lurks within my heart. As Paul tells us in Romans 8, I will have to wait until later for my present body of sin to be renewed, raised from the dead without sin and corruption. This is the great hope I wait for as I look ahead to the resurrection.
But the wonderful news for today is that, in spite of that sinful nature that still lurks within, I have been cleansed from all of the sin in my life. Listen to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Because Jesus Christ took all of my sin on himself when he died on that cross, because he paid the penalty for all of the sins I will ever commit, I am now washed, sanctified and justified in his name by the Holy Spirit! Cleansed from all sin is a wonderful reality, a wonderful feeling! Yes, I know I have and will disappoint God, myself and others in my life because of sin. I will feel remorse over that sin as all believers do, and I will ask God to forgive me of that sin. Because he is faithful to forgive me of that sin I will rise up and exalt God for cleansing me, washing me of that sin and restoring me to himself!
Only a God of great love and great mercy would do such a thing for someone like me…
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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