Contrition Is The One Gift You Can Give God Psalm 51 (day11)

For this lent season, I am doing a forty-day study in the Psalms looking for aspects of the atonement that will end around Easter. My hope is to generate a newfound awe of what Christ did on the cross.

Psalm 51 is one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible. It shows us a clear picture of what the cross has done for us. It cleanses us! The only gift we can give God is a broken and contrite heart; this is what David gave to God. He told God, “all I have to give you is a broken heart”. Contrition means, “I NEED GOD”! This is all we have to give God. Matthew 5 says, “Blessed are those who were poor in spirit, that means blessed are the ones who understand their need for God”. Psalm 51 is all about the need for God's mercy and grace in a time that the cross didn't exist. God what an amazing picture of faith you have given us through David

I believe that throughout scripture God shows us that it is the Holy Spirit that removes sin, and is the one who brings change to the human. In Psalm 51, David is confessing and repenting of his sin, as he was in the old sacrificial system, where the forgiveness of moral sin was not available because the removal of moral sin only came through the cross of our Savior Jesus. The writer in Hebrews 9:7 tells us that the old sacrificial system only forgave unintentional or ceremonial sins. We see David somehow supernaturally ask for the removal of moral sin of murder and adultery and that he wasn’t going to offer a bull sacrifice, to boot. It was an amazing picture of David calling out to God in a system that didn’t produce the cleansing of sin, yet he still demanded it. He said wash me, and I will be clean. What an amazing image, and it is my opinion that when Paul said, of David, in Acts 13:22 “he is a man after my own heart”, it would be because of the forgiveness of sin. I’m not sure if I can emphasize enough what the removal of sins does in our life. In addition to the law of God written on the hearts of man, that we are the letter of God, which means right relationship with Him. One of the main goals of our faith is to lead people to experience their right relationship with God. Basically, lead them to become who they already are in Christ.  Psalm 51:13 David said that if God forgave him, he would teach sinners God’s ways!  Naturally, to be able to teach this he himself must first experience forgiveness.  In other words, you can’t give away what you don’t understand. To understand your forgiveness, you need to understand the love of God. David showed us that he understood God’s love through Psalm 51.