Week 5
Psalm 51:1-2 “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
How many times these words, and the words of the rest of Psalm 51, have been spoken by broken and contrite hearts, only eternity can tell! The first great work of the Holy Spirit is the work of conviction (John 16:8), and when the Spirit brings conviction there is fear, shame, and desperation on the part of the sinner. There is no greater burden than to feel the burden of sin under the weight of conviction!
But the Holy Spirit also brings, along with a knowledge of sin, the assured hope of the forgiveness of sin through God’s forgiveness. The devil doesn’t mind if a sinner comes to see his sin, in fact the devil then can use that knowledge against the sinner. The knowledge of sin can lead to hardening to sin and self-loathing, which is the fertile soil of destruction. The devil doesn’t want the guilty sinner to believe there is forgiveness and deliverance from sin. The devil wants the convicted sinner to believe that there is no way he or she can ever be clean before God again and his life is over.
This is the darkness of spiritual destruction fed from the springs of hopelessness. But the gospel brings hope to sinners; the gospel brings newness of life to sinners. It offers to sinners a cleansing from sin and a washing from iniquity. To the sinner broken by his sin the Bible says, “Come, let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sin be as scarlet, it shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). Again, the Lord speaks to His sinning people and says, “I, even I, am the One who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25). How wonderful that the God who knows all things chooses to forget our past transgressions! Incredible and incomprehensible, but true!
The cross of Christ is stained with the vileness of sin, not sin committed by Jesus, but our sin placed on His shoulders. And He died for our sins, every stinking one of them! And because Jesus died for our sins, the sins of God’s elect people, we are forgiven of every one of them through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. We are forgiven, and we are free! Dear sweet people of God, relish the magnanimous forgiveness of your God and receive His forgiveness and live in the sunshine of our acceptance through Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for the forgiveness of sins. Thank you for giving Jesus as the sacrifice for my sin, and I look to Him as the One who paid the price for my sin and makes me right with You through faith by grace. Help me to live in the fear and joy of the Lord; help me to live my life in the priceless freedom that comes from being forgiven by You through the cross of Jesus Christ.