The Battle Within

Psalm 51:1-5

¹ Look on me with a heart of mercy, O God,
    according to Your generous love.
According to Your great compassion,
    wipe out every consequence of my shameful crimes.
² Thoroughly wash me, inside and out, of all my crooked deeds.
    Cleanse me from my sins.

³ For I am fully aware of all I have done wrong,
    and my guilt is there, staring me in the face.
⁴ It was against You, only You, that I sinned,
    for I have done what You say is wrong, right before Your eyes.
So when You speak, You are in the right.
    When You judge, Your judgments are pure and true.
⁵ For I was guilty from the day I was born,
    a sinner from the time my mother became pregnant with me.

There comes a time in our life when God, in His love and mercy, chooses to give us another chance when we have made a big mistake. This is what happened to David. During this particular time he had been confronted by Nathan the prophet at the direction of the Lord. The sin—having an affair with Bathsheba and successfully plotting the murder of her husband so he could hide his folly. But to David’s defense, this sin did not start with him. It was already part of his bloodline. David himself was the product of an adulterous relationship. His mother was not the mother of his brothers. That is one reason why he was rejected by them. But no matter in which generation the sin started manifesting, when we are confronted with our tendencies that are less than God’s will for us, our posture should be of godly sorrow.

Like David, many of us have been in this place where our sin and costly mistakes are staring us in the face to remind us of the wrong turns we took. This experiences also serve as a way to recognize what is in us that we need God in His loving Kindness to help us cleanse from so we can have a strong walk with Him that comes from a pure and whole heart that is solely after Him and His will for our life.

When God exposes the fears that have led to other behavior which in turn has caused us to sin against Him, against ourselves, and against others, we should not run from Him. On the contrary, we must run into His arms of love and allow Him to break us open in our inner most parts because we recognize that we have not received His love for us, and instead, went the idolatrous way of the world to follow the course of the leaking of our soul from its brokenness.

God is so loving to us that He chooses to not leave us in that condition and reaches out to us to help us come out of that miry clay. As we also recognize that He loved us before we could be aware of His love for us (1 John 4:10, 19), we cannot help but cry and throw ourselves in His arms while we allow Him to cleanse us from the unrighteousness found in us and that we inherited from our ancestors. They too did not know that God loved them and responded to the influence of the spirit of this world in their own brokenness. But no matter how much we have walked away from His will for us, we are one turn in His direction away from His loving arms which are wide open to receive us like the father who ran to embrace his long lost prodigal son. Luke 15:11-16 says,

¹¹ “Once there was this man who had two sons. ¹² One day the younger son came to his father and said, “Father, eventually I’m going to inherit my share of your estate. Rather than waiting until you die, I want you to give me my share now.” And so the father liquidated assets and divided them. ¹³ A few days passed and this younger son gathered all his wealth and set off on a journey to a distant land. Once there he wasted everything he owned on wild living. ¹⁴ He was broke, a terrible famine struck that land, and he felt desperately hungry and in need. ¹⁵ He got a job with one of the locals, who sent him into the fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ The young man felt so miserably hungry that he wished he could eat the slop the pigs were eating. Nobody gave him anything.”

There may be painful consequences to our sinful behavior, but that does not stop our Father from running to receive us with open arms just as the father in this story reveals his unconditional love for his son, who repented of having squandered his inheritance in wild living until he lost it all and found himself in a famine in his life just as there was a famine in the land where he had gone. Verses 17-24 of Luke 15 also disclose to us,

¹⁷ “So he had this moment of self-reflection: “What am I doing here? Back home, my father’s hired servants have plenty of food. Why am I here starving to death? ¹⁸ I’ll get up and return to my father, and I’ll say, ‘Father, I have done wrong—wrong against God and against you. ¹⁹ I have forfeited any right to be treated like your son, but I’m wondering if you’d treat me as one of your hired servants?’” ²⁰ So he got up and returned to his father. The father looked off in the distance and saw the young man returning. He felt compassion for his son and ran out to him, enfolded him in an embrace, and kissed him.

²¹ The son said, “Father, I have done a terrible wrong in God’s sight and in your sight too. I have forfeited any right to be treated as your son.”

²² But the father turned to his servants and said, “Quick! Bring the best robe we have and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. ²³ Go get the fattest calf and butcher it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate ²⁴ because my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and has been found.” So they had this huge party.”

But even if this is the first time we have chosen to receive the love of the Father for us and His loving embrace, we can find assurance, love, warmth and tenderness as He cleanses us by the washing of water with His Word. This is a promise He made even before Jesus came to earth. That He would give us a clean heart and a pure heart so we would be able to walk as His sons and daughters that can co-rule and walk in intimate partnership with Him to bring heaven on earth in the land He has promised us. Ezekiel 36:22-32 tells us,

²² “Consequently, tell the people of Israel that the Eternal Lord says, ‘When I act, people of Israel, it won’t be for your own good, but for the sake of salvaging My own reputation, which you have slandered in front of those outside our covenant. ²³ I will restore My great name to its holy state which has been desecrated in every nation by you! After all these things come to pass and I reveal My holiness through you right before their eyes, then these nations will know that I am the Eternal. ²⁴ I will take you away from the nations, gather you from all the foreign soils, and bring you back to your own land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle you with clean water, and you will be clean. I will wash away all of your dirtiness, and you will be clean and pure, free from the taint of idols. ²⁶ I will plant a new heart and new spirit inside of you. I will take out your stubborn, stony heart and give you a willing, tender heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put My Spirit inside of you and inspire you to live by My statutes and follow My laws. ²⁸ Then you will live in the same land I gave your ancestors; you will be My people, and I will be your God. ^29-30 I will rescue you from your impurity. I will summon the grain to produce large harvests and never bring a famine upon you again. I will increase your harvests of fruit and grain, so that you will never have to face the disgrace of famine again among the nations. ³¹ Then you will recall your evil ways and wicked deeds. You will recognize how bad they were and hate yourselves for all the shocking and despicable things you did! ³² But I, the Eternal Lord, am not doing this for your own good. You should still feel shame and humiliation for all you’ve done, people of Israel!’”

The Scripture says that He does this for His own name’s sake because we gave Him a bad name among the nations with our sinful behavior. It may sound like He is looking out for Himself more than for us, but in reality, He loves us and is a God that is Jealous for our devotion to Him and not to idols Exodus 34:14 says, 

 ^“because you must not worship any god except for Me. My name is Jealous, and I am a jealous God.”

Jesus is the only way, the only Truth, and the only way to have Life in abundance (John 14:6). That is why when we live apart from His direction, wisdom, and guidance by His Spirit, we encounter those things that are now breaking us and making us realize that apart from Him we can do nothing (John 5:5). But it is not too late to look up and ask God to forgive us, cleanse us, restore us, purify us, and give us the right spirit that will help us obey His statues and have right standing with Him like David did. In Psalm 51:6-19 he acknowledged,

⁶ ”But still, You long to enthrone truth throughout my being;
    in unseen places deep within me, You show me wisdom.
⁷ Cleanse me of my wickedness with hyssop, and I will be clean.
    If You wash me, I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Help me hear joy and happiness as my accompaniment,
    so my bones, which You have broken, will dance in delight instead.
⁹ Cover Your face so You will not see my sins,
    and erase my guilt from the record.

¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God;
    restore within me a sense of being brand new.
¹¹ Do not throw me far away from Your presence,
    and do not remove Your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Give back to me the deep delight of being saved by You;
    let Your willing Spirit sustain me.

¹³ If You do, I promise to teach rebels Your ways
    and help sinners find their way back to You.
¹⁴ Free me from the guilt of murder, of shedding a man’s blood,
    O God who saves me.
    Now my tongue, which was used to destroy, will be used to sing with deep delight of how right and just You are.

¹⁵ O Lord, pry open my lips
    that this mouth will sing joyfully of Your greatness.
¹⁶ I would surrender my dearest possessions or destroy all that I prize to prove my regret,
    but You don’t take pleasure in sacrifices or burnt offerings.
¹⁷ What sacrifice I can offer You is my broken spirit
    because a broken spirit, O God,
    a heart that honestly regrets the past,
You won’t detest.

¹⁸ Be good to Zion; grant her Your favor.
    Make Jerusalem’s walls steady and strong.
¹⁹ Then there will be sacrifices made,
    burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings,
With right motives that will delight You.
    And costly young bulls will be offered up to Your altar, only the best.”

Let this be our prayer. To Him alone be all the glory. ■

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Scripture taken from The Voice Version.