Remembering Our Sin and God's Mercy

Scripture

Read Psalm 51: 1-19

Today, as I was reading my Bible, I was struck by verse 3 of Psalm 51:

For I acknowledge my transgressions:  and my sin is ever before me.

This verse reminded me that there are many sins in my life, that I remember, not necessarily because I have repeated them;  but, to me, they were significant.  We could definitely say the sin that David is referring to was significant.  He had just committed adultery with Bathsheba.

However, David admits his sin:  he confesses it and asks for God to restore the joy of his salvation.  He also asks God to not throw him out of His presence and to give him a spirit that is willing, which I think means willing to do as God wants, to follow the Lord's precepts.  

Other verses I found extraordinary in a time, when sacrifices were a means of being granted cleansing from sin are the following:

¹⁶ For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise (KJV).

I am not saying we should wallow in our sin or live our lives in regret, but the remembrance of past sin and the concurrent consequences are definitely a deterrent to committing the same sins.  Moreover, if one truly has a broken and contrite spirit over the wrong things we have done or not done, we should not want to repeat our sin.  

The main thing is giving it to God, being truly repentant, and getting on with your life.  Wallowing in our sins and failures is a useless exercise;  however, the memory being there could be part of our protection from ourselves.

I also want to say something about memory.  The best thing is to replace those bad memories with good ones.  Philippians 4:8 says, 

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things (KJV).

Therefore I pray good thoughts for you today, and may you always remember God's unfailing love. 

Hope for When Your Path Gets Rocky

Just in case you never read  Living Better With An Invisible Illness, one of other blogs;  I felt like I needed to share my recent blog post, A Letter to God-sized Dreamers.  You have probably heard that old saying, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."  When the going gets tough for Christians, God is right there with us -- holding us up.

Are You Watching "The Bible?"

Are you watching "The Bible" on the History Channel?  I hope you are feeling challenged to read your Bible more;  because there is no way they can cover the entire Bible in 10 hours, and show you the scope and breadth of what God's Word contains.  However, it is a good thing if one's response is I want to know more.

In Living Better With An Invisible Illness, I have been writing about my God-sized dream.  My main dream is to read through the Bible this year.  I have written several posts, beginning with Dreaming God-sized Dreams, which I moved from my Inspirations blog.  When I did that, I lost some really cool comments, which made me sad.  Who knew you lost comments when you move blog posts?  Not me. 

 "Prayer" courtesy of graur razvan ionut/

 FreeDigitalPhotos.net

While reading the Bible through, I have to tell you what has me very, very excited.  For some reason, I had never truly envisioned the mass of people that left Egypt during the Exodus.  However, I realize it was more than I ever dreamed. Numbers 1:1 says that God spoke to Moses on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt.. God told Moses to take a census in Numbers 1, and how to do it.  Therefore, Moses appointed men to assist him in taking a census and listing the men, who were able to serve in an army.  These men were to be age twenty or older.  

What absolutely astounded me were the number of men able to serve after they were counted.  The total number, excluding the tribe of Levi (the priestly tribe), was 603,550.  Now, think about all those people that left Egypt, all the men, women, and children not in the number.  Think about the tents, the animals, and all these people leaving Egypt and moving through the desert to the promised land.  As far as the eye could see, one would see people and more people.  Think of the space all those people and animals must have taken up.  No movie or television show could have enough extras for us to see what it was like.

Our God is truly an awesome God.  If He could do this for the Israelites, how much more is He able to do for us?  I keep envisioning this mass of people.  Can you imagine the dust cloud their movement raised?  Our God is amazing!

Prayer
Thank you, God for what You have done and what you are going to do for Your   
people.  You are truly awesome and great: You are beyond human description.  Thank you for the glimpses You give us of Your mighty power.  In Jesus' Holy Name, Amen..(KJV).