For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
...
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Psalms51:3-12
No discussion about penitence is complete without considering Ps.51.
David has sinned breaking various of the Ten Commandments...
-He sees Bathsheba bathing and desires her (10th)
-He summons ("steals") her from her home to the palace. (8th)
-He commits adultery with her (7th) getting her pregnant
-He has her husband to come home so that it will look like the baby is his - but he doesn't sleep with his wife. (We could argue this attempt at deception breaks the spirit of the 9th commandment)
-He arranges her husband's death (6th)
In the light of extent of his sin-full failure, there are some valuable lessons from Ps.51:
1. Although David's sin is against Bathsheba, Uriah and even against those who he uses to get Uriah killed - David recognises that it is ultimately failure before God ("against You only have I sinned"). These are God's people he has sinned against, God's commandments He has broken, and as God's anointed king, he has dragged God's name through the mud.
2. He asks for forgiveness (complete Divine Forgetfulness) - "Hide Your face from my sins..."
3. But he asks for more: He asks that God will transform him - make a better person of him and he asks God to keep His anointing (Spirit) on him. On the surface this could look like he's asking that God keeps His Spirit on him that he can remain king, but David is asking for pure heart and a steadfast spirit and a return of the joy of salvation (close relationship with God)
This is the ultimate purpose of Penitence - transformation and closeness to God. We'll explore this further in the next day or two.
---
--------------------------
Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
