Read: Jonah 3:1-10;
Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 18-19; Luke 11:29-32
Psalm 51 is
one of the best examples of the heart GOD desires for us all. This is a picture of how to be crushed with
guilt well. During this season of Lent may
HOLY SPIRIT make it so in our hearts.
What makes a
person a Christian is not that he doesn’t get discouraged, and it’s not that he
doesn’t sin and feel miserable about it. What makes a person a Christian is the
connection that he has with Jesus Christ that shapes how he thinks and feels
about his discouragement and his sin and guilt.
The heading of Psalm 51 goes like this: “To
the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after
he had gone in to Bathsheba.” What happened with Bathsheba is well known:
“It
happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking
on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and
the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And
one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the
Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he
lay with her. . . . Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived,
and she sent and told David, ‘I am pregnant.’”
He tried to cover his sin by bringing her
husband Uriah home from battle so Uriah could lie with her and think it was his
baby. Uriah was too noble to go in to his wife while his comrades were in
battle. So David arranged to have him killed so that he could quickly marry
Bathsheba and cover the sin that way.
Here is what Paul said in Romans 3:25–26: “God put [Christ] forward as a propitiation
by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness,
because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins [that’s
exactly what 2 Samuel 12:13 says God did—he passed over David’s sin]. It was to
show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the
justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Being a Christian means being broken and
contrite. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you get beyond this in this life.
It marks the life of God’s happy children till they die. We are broken and
contrite all the way home—unless sin gets the proud upper hand. Being broken
and contrite is not against joy and praise and witness. It’s the flavor of
Christian joy and praise and witness.
“All
gracious affections [feelings, emotions] that are a sweet [aroma] to Christ . .
. are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God or men,
is a humble brokenhearted love. The desires of the saints, however earnest, are
humble desires: their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is
unspeakable, and full of glory, is a humble brokenhearted joy. . . .” –Jonathan
Edwards
JESUS is Risen .
. . !
Richard Holloman
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