“Be gracious to me, God,
according to Your faithful love;
according to Your abundant compassion,
(Not my faithfulness or my compassion or my efforts, because the truth slays me as inadequate!)
blot out my rebellion.
(The truth in me is rebellion exposed.)
Wash away my guilt
and cleanse me from my sin.
(I see it, I hate it, and I need You to cleanse me from it because I cannot!)
For I am conscious of my rebellion,
and my sin is always before me.
(The more I pursue truth the more I am slain by my weakness and inadequacy to change myself)
Against You — You alone — I have sinned
and done this evil in Your sight.
(The worst part of sinning is to know that it is against You alone that I act, do, or think in such a way that hurts You)
---- quick thought tangent----
Can we hurt God? First we must define what we mean by "hurt" and if by "hurt" we mean to take God's love for granted by not reciprocating it, such as when a lover tells their love "I love you" only to be left hearing back "I do not love you" then yes, in that sense we can "hurt" God. But if we mean "hurt" as in cause another the pain of offense in malice, the way a man might rob another man and stab him in the process, then even that--even if by "hurting God" we mean to offend Him with the pain of offense in malice, we are up against someone who is not helpless to defend Himself. God is not a mere man to be robbed and unable to have His way. However, neither is God a mere man that anyone could rob Him in the first place, so this definition of "hurt" is an illusion, a lie. The only way to "hurt" God is to reject His love. And it is a great mystery to know what the Father felt when He loved us and sent His Son to die in order for us to know that love. The heart of God is a deep mystery that reveals more layers of that great love.
----
So You are right when You pass sentence;
You are blameless when You judge.
(The truth does slay me, because I deserve every bad circumstance or happening when confronted by the truth.)
Indeed, I was guilty when I was born;
I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
(More so, sin in me came from birth because of humanity's origin at the fall. I come from a fallen humanity, and that is the truth. Which means from birth I knew only to reject God's love, and needed Him to rescue me with nothing on my part that could be done. Sheer grace.)
Surely You desire integrity in the inner self,
and You teach me wisdom deep within.
(This truth that slays is the truth that heals and frees me within. I am nothing without God who gives me everything good, the integrity I long to possess--these changes I now want after the truth reveals how ugly my integrity really is, are changes He gives in His time, teaching me wisdom that reveals my utmost dependence on Him in this every way, and how much He loves me when they do happen at the right time.)
Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
(These are all actions done to me while I am the passive recipient, sheer grace.)
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones You have crushed rejoice.
(We sin, and it is God who crushes the inside of our consciences as a blessing to make us hate sin. This crushed feeling then becomes a joy and a gladness because I want sin to be gone! That desire for sin to be gone is a good thing and only God can give good things--so even the desire for good is a grace!)
Turn Your face away from my sins
and blot out all my guilt.
(Again, the truth slays us with shame and guilt, a feeling no one really likes, but to have the wisdom of knowing God is to know that it is God who has blot our sins out by His blood.)
God, create a clean heart for me
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
(The Creator alone can create, even a new heart and a renewed steadfastness of our spirit, sheer grace, since we are powerless to do any of those two things ourselves.)
Do not banish me from Your presence
or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
(If we feel God to be far or that His spirit is not with us, it is again only God who will or will not make that happen. We can only hope and pray and ask that He does not, but we have no control if He does or if He does not! This is so glorious! Because it bows me back on my knees to verse 1 of this psalm:
"Be gracious to me, God,
according to Your faithful love;
according to Your abundant compassion"
When you know the faithful love of God, the abundant compassion, and the sheer powerful grace of God...this becomes an anchor for the certainty that the hope and prayer and asking of God to not leave me of His choice based on His attributes...and not based on me, is glorious!)
Restore the joy of Your salvation to me,
and give me a willing spirit.
(To not be will-less or willful, but willing. It is God's wisdom to reveal to us what it means to be will-less and what it looks like to be willful, in order to know how to be willing.)
Then I will teach the rebellious Your ways,
and sinners will return to You.
Save me from the guilt of bloodshed,
God, the God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing of Your righteousness.
(We must first be in the truth of all of this before we can do anything. We must first be in Him, as John 15:5 says, remain in me and I will remain in you, for apart from me you can do nothing. I teach the Youth kids at my church every Sunday and Friday, and I can only do that well when I realize I can do nothing unless God allows it. Only then can I begin to speak and sing of His righteousness in honesty. The same reaches every other "task" in my life, my schooling, my relationships with friends, parents, and teachers, they are all only going to go as far as God wills, and in that I rejoice knowing it is Him and not me because the truth that slays me is the truth that sets me free. Meaning I might see a mess up or feel fear or anger or sadness about something, but God's ways are higher and I again just let the truth (all the above) wash me clean. He is doing something and I am just in His will enjoying the life of being loved by Him.)
Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare Your praise.
(When you know this in the deepest anchored part of your heart...you will not be able to be silent. We are commanded to love, but the command to love is impossible, love cannot be articulately created in our hearts by us, this command reveals the inadequacy of the law as it pertains to our command to love. We love because God loves us. That's it. Not because we do this or act like this. When you fear how to love others you are basically under the assumption that you are commanded to love by Law, and you will soon find how impossible that is the more you learn what real love from the heart is. Love needs no command. You need not command me to drink coffee or take a nap or eat something vegan. I love those things, and because I love them I don't need to be commanded about them.*
*I heard this from J.D. Greear which helped me see the truth of scripture more clearly. I love Godly people that make the truth so beautifully understood. It makes sense!)
You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it;
You are not pleased with a burnt offering.
(Again, these are all outward actions without inward intentions. God doesn't want your doing stuff, He wants your heart. He wants you to believe and know how deep His love is, and usually that means we are first exposed to our fierce resistance of His love in our lives. Resistance when we don't trust Him in a circumstance that appears too difficult, resistance when we reject our worth and value in Him by trying to be valuable in something else, resistance to His power to resurrect and give us new life when we are scared to die from humiliation or discomfort or uncontrolled areas. We resist and resist and resist, but He loves us still! He wants us to resist the bad things so that we will get the good things, that's love.).
The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit.
God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.
(The only thing we have to offer God is a broken spirit. The truth that slays us is the truth that breaks us inside and frees us to be the pleasing sacrifice to God. If our goal is to please God then our every day is to be slain by the truth which means to live with a broken spirit...constantly. Now that might sound depressing and bad because who wants to walk around with a crushed and broken heart? The pain of such is known to have brought people to suicide, but this "broken heart" is not the same as a broken heart that broke because of an imperfect love. Imperfect loves like beauty (being crushed when you get ugly and old), status (being crushed when you're no longer the head honcho or respected), relationships (being crushed when a friend or lover leaves you), marriages (being crushed by infidelity or the death of your spouse), children (being crushed when they self-destruct themselves or die), jobs (being crushed at getting fired or losing a promotion or not getting the one you wanted), money (being crushed when it runs out or when you need it for something), reputation (being crushed when you fail to succeed and are reputed as a mess up or when you are humiliated by your mistakes and loss of your once esteemed reputation), accomplishments (being crushed when someone else gets what you wanted or does better than you), these are all destined to break your heart too if you love them as much as you are meant to love God.
But a crushed and broken spirit that happens because of how we reject and resist God's love is not the same. This broken heart is beautiful because it loves and believes in God. It proves, by action and disposition, the power of God's love as real and evident and lasting--which none of those other loves that crushed you before could ever be. I am crushed and my heart is broken, but it is broken in the way I can honestly and actually offer it to God as a pleasing sacrifice to His love for me. In this case, unlike the others, my broken heart is broken because I get what I desire, while disordered loves break my heart from not getting what I desire.)
In Your good pleasure, cause Zion to prosper;
build the walls of Jerusalem.
Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices,
whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on Your altar.”
-Psalms 51:1-19
When God is the cause and reason and purpose and source and motivation and desire and willpower and director and captain and planter and grower and grace giver and lover and breaker and take away-er and everything....when He is pretty much God, that's when we start living life to the fullest! We are created by God, for God, and exist to glorify God alone. All other lives will be a lie. But the truth that slays you will be the truth that sets you free to live.
“Because they disregarded the righteousness from God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to God’s righteousness.”
Romans 10:3
Only one of us can be right in the truth. I am wrong You are right, so lead me with my broken heart.
“If you confess with your mouth,
“Jesus is Lord,”
and believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead,
you will be saved.
One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.
For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
-Romans 10:9-10, 13
Call on Jesus today and you will be saved! So simple. That's it. Two things: You call outwardly + believe inwardly. It is the believing part that most of us will have trouble with. And that is my point of going through psalm 51. The beauty of the truth that slays us, our unbelief and powerlessness, is the truth that frees us. It HAS TO BE GOD. Haha so knowing what kind of person God is helps us believe, and experiencing those laws in our lives like serving and praying (all the spiritual disciplines) are not to be disordered in their functions. Those things were never meant to save you, and they certainly will not since they are not what Romans 10 define as the two things that do (calling and believing) they were meant to help you know what kind of God you are calling upon to believe in your heart. The reason I serve or pray or resist sins are not to be saved, but to be helped by God as the sinner in Mark 9:24 cried out: "I believe, but help my unbelief!"
Honestly, the hardest people to love will be the ones you can't seem to live without. The hardest humans to love for me are my parents and brother and sister in law. Think about why that makes sense, and then realize why it's so hard for you and I to love God. And THEN, how glorious it is that God does not love us because of how we love Him (which is badly) but He loves us because He loves us. Period.
Because God is this kind of God.
“He said, “I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name Yahweh before you.
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.””
-Exodus 33:19
Honestly,
Jmegrey
No comments:
Post a Comment