God Knows


                                                                                                                                                            

Psalms 51: 10-12

Create in me a clean heart, O God. 
Renew a loyal spirit within me.  
Do not banish me from your presence,
and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.  
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and make me willing to obey you.
Psalms 51: 10 – 12

Wouldn’t this make a great daily opening to our private prayer?  Here we read and experience the amazing power of David’s self-reflection and remorse.  How freeing it must have been for David to come before his God to confess his sin and ask to be restored to the joy of his salvation!  

I am not sure about you, but I remember as a child running to hide when I did something wrong and I knew my parents would be upset.  My favorite place was under my bed.  I would climb under there and hold my breath in the dark so as to not give myself up.  I thought if they could not find me then I would not have to confess what I did wrong and therefore there would not be any punishment. They would find me in the end and the fact of the matter was, because I did not come forward and confess what I did wrong, oftentimes the punishment was greater.  I remember my mother saying, “If you would have only told me!”

I liken this to our sinful nature.  We all sin. We think the sinful things we do in private are hidden.  We think if no one “sees” it or uncovers it that we have gotten away with it. We punish ourselves by inflicting mental anguish by sitting in the dark and holding our breath hoping that no one will find out.   We live in fear that our sin will be exposed, so much so that we become captive to it.  We allow it to fester and grow to a point where we feel our sins are too great to be forgiven.

NOTE: Our God can do all, knows all and is everywhere!

God is omnipotent or all powerful, and omniscient or all-knowing as well as omnipresent meaning present everywhere at once.  He knows our sin and wants us to come forward out of the dark.  He wants to restore us. He will forgive and bestow his grace and mercy upon us if we only seek Him.  He demonstrated this great and powerful love by giving His only Son to die on Calvary for that purpose.  

Lent is a powerful time to repent. It is a time for us to come out of the dark and stop being captive to sin.  Lent is a great time to begin/renew our relationship with God through private prayer. Lent is the ideal time for us to draw near to Him and be restored to the joy of our salvation.

Father God, you know our sin, forgive us.  You know our weakness, provide us with strength.  You know the power of self-reflection, let us see ourselves as you see us.  Let us draw nearer to you in order to ask forgiveness and embrace our salvation.  Amen.

Pastor Bryan Holmes 

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