Restore My Joy....

I'm reading Psalm 51 this morning. David wrote it after Nathan confronted him about his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah.

It's, I think,  the clearest expression of confession and repentance and total forgiveness in Scripture.

It's  so universal, and yet so personal that this psalm has touched the hearts of God's people for centuries.  I have read that in the early church it was recited, as a group, at every Lord's Day service.

Look at verse 12. After his sincere confession, David is confident of God's faithful forgiveness, and now prays: "Restore to me the joy of  Your salvation."

When I first read this verse some years ago, I was startled by David's nerve! He is saying that even after the horrible sins he committed, 'Please, God, bring me back to that joyous relationship with You again!' 

How could he have the nerve to ask that? After all he'd done! And notice the expression, "Your salvation."....not "my salvation."

This wording appears throughout Scripture. Why? Because everything about salvation is from God. We don't initiate anything.

Beginning with our search for God, our seeing ourselves as the sinners we are, even our very repentance  is a gift of God. 

We do nothing, absolutely nothing, to achieve His salvation, except accept the gift. It's all about God.

"Amazing grace...grace that taught our hearts to fear and grace our fears relieved."

So why do we love this psalm so much? Because it is our experience, too. We are just as hardened and sinful as David. And we also stand in desperate of God's mercy and grace.

And we have it: Remember Hebrews 4:16? "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may find mercy and receive grace to help us in our hour of need."