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Journey to Jerusalem Day 36

Wednesday, March 24 Psalm 51:14-19
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.


God calls David “a man after my own heart.” Yet David was a deeply flawed man. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and to conceal that sin, David had Uriah (her husband) killed in battle. This is likely the bloodguiltiness that David refers to in v. 14. How can such a man be a man after God’s own heart?


Perhaps because David acknowledged his sin: he had a broken and contrite heart before God.


“A heart crushed is a fragrant heart. Men contemn those who are contemptible in their own eyes, but the Lord seeth not as man seeth. He despises what men esteem, and values that which they despise. Never yet has God spurned a lowly, weeping penitent, and never will he while God is love, and while Jesus is called the man who receiveth sinners.” -- Charles Spurgeon


God does not look at our broken and contrite heart as the world does. He delights in it because it proves that we understand our need for Him.


So, come to the throne of God with a broken and contrite heart with confidence that you will not be spurned. If God can forgive David of adultery and murder, He is perfectly capable of forgiving you of your sin.


What a comforting thought that no sin is too big for God’s forgiveness! Or as Richard Sibbs put it “there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”
Lastly, note how David responds to God’s mercy. In vv. 14-15, David praises the God of his salvation. May the magnitude of God’s salvation cause us to praise Him!

Father God, we come to You with broken and contrite hearts. We acknowledge that we need Your salvation. And we praise You that there is more mercy in Your Son than sin in us!
Amen.
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