Opening your life to God’s Word on a consistent basis over a long period of time will slowly but surely begin to shape your thoughts, perspective, attitudes, and actions. You will start out just reading God’s Word and it will eventually begin to read you! God’s truth will challenge you and help you to see as God sees! Watch how God’s perspective will begin to influence you in ways you never imagined! Stick with the plan! Open your heart to God and He will transform you from the inside out!
In His Love,
Pastor Jerry
(Read all of Psalm 51)
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.....Create in me a pur heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me..... Psalm 51:1-2, 10
David was a man after God’s own heart and known to us in history as the greatest king of Israel. But, like you and me, he was a sinner and failed in some pretty significant ways. The most famous was his adulterous affair with Bathsheba that led to her pregnancy and David having her husband murdered. Scripture says that when David’s sin was pointed out by Nathan the prophet, David acknowledged his sin. Psalm 51 is David’s prayer of confession before God. David acknowledges that all sin is ultimately a sin against God. He prays that God would cleanse him from the stain of his sin and create in him a pure heart. He prays that God would restore the joy of his salvation and that thru this terrible and tragic moment that David would forever use his life to teach God’s ways to others. While God already knows our sin; something transpires in the soul of the one who is honest enough before God to confess the tragic nature of one’s sin, to ask for forgiveness, and to repent or seek a change of direction from the desperate place of that sin. As David acknowledges in his prayer………. God desires truth, humility, and a repentant heart.
Name that place of sin in your heart before God with honesty. Hold that sin up before your Heavenly Father and feel the weight of that sin and the places of hurt, pain, and loneliness it has caused you and others. The Bible says that when we confess our sins that “God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Pray and claim God’s forgiveness in Christ and ask that He would cleanse your heart…..that He would strengthen you to change directions…away from sin and toward Him. Pray that God would restore your joy in Him and allow you to learn from this experience and help others in the future to know God’s truth you have learned in this place of brokenness. Write down the areas of sin in your life where you are seeking God’s forgiveness.
Prayer focus: Next Gen Ministries
Beach United Methodist Church
325 7th Avenue North
Jacksonville Beach, Florida, 32250
904.249.2343