Page 49 - Living light - The Psalms

Wednesday July 24 - To be clean again
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7
David would have been fully aware of the strict religious practices the Jews adhered to for ceremonial cleansing; for example Leviticus 14 in reference to leprosy and Numbers 19 for the cleansing of anyone who touched a dead body.
In today’s verses David pleads to be made clean, inside and out. He comes to God as his High Priest to do for him what he could not do for himself. He wants to be clean again, to feel the relief of the weight and stain of his sin being washed away.
Fast forward to Jesus’ death on the cross. The shedding of his blood for the forgiveness and cleansing of our sin is very much what David was asking for hundreds of years earlier. And, just like David, we need God to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves.
There are so many things that we encounter in life, so many things that can taint us and make us feel dirty and soiled. They are still called ‘sin’. It is a word that provokes many reactions – but for me, my reaction is to ask that God does for me what I cannot do for myself: “Cleanse me...wash me...” Please read Isaiah 1:18, then pray:
Father God, thank you for the wonderful truths of this verse. Amen.
Thursday July 25 - To be renewed, again
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10
David recognised that he had sinned against God and realised that his heart was ‘messed up’. The close and intimate ‘heart-to-heart’ relationship David had with God had been spoiled by sin. And yet God spoke of David as being ‘a man after (his) own heart’ (Acts 13:22). David used the same Hebrew verb (barah) here as is in Genesis 1:1, when God created everything out of nothing. Could God now create a clean heart for him?
Central to our physical and spiritual lives is our heart. When we come to faith in Jesus, we ‘give him our heart’. It is relational – a relationship David knew. He also asked God to renew his ‘steadfast spirit’ and crucially (in verses 11-12) he longed to be in God’s presence again and to know the joy that brings. What a wonderful passage to incorporate into our daily prayers!
My problem is that I no sooner get this ‘newly created’ heart than I mess up again! I step a little away from God. Yet the lovely thing about the verb barah is that it refers to not just a one-off event but something continuous! God’s mercies remain new, and continuous every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).
Lord God, as I ask you to create in me a pure heart, I thank you that because of Jesus’ death on the cross my sin is forgiven, my life is restored. Amen.
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PRAYER FOR TODAY
PRAYER FOR TODAY