Does God Love Us? Part 4

"The LORD has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
       according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.  ²² For I have kept the ways of the LORD;
       I have not done evil by turning from my God.
 ²³ All his laws are before me;
       I have not turned away from his decrees.
 ²⁴ I have been blameless before him
       and have kept myself from sin.
 ²⁵ The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
       according to my cleanness ^[f] in his sight.
 ²⁶ "To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
       to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
 ²⁷ to the pure you show yourself pure,
       but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.
 ²⁸ You save the humble,
       but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them low.
 ²⁹ You are my lamp, O LORD;
       the LORD turns my darkness into light.
 ³⁰ With your help I can advance against a troop ^[g] ;
       with my God I can scale a wall.

If you read the book of Psalms, you'll find a nearly identical passage as this one in Psalm 18.  It's nearly word for word.  I read in a commentary that the Psalm was probably written toward the end of David's life.  That puzzled me, because David refers to himself as being "blameless" and "clean."  Isn't this the same David who had an affair with another man's wife and had her husband killed to cover up for his actions?

Then I looked further.  I realized that the account of David & Bathsheba is recorded in 2 Samuel 11.  First came the sin.  In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan confronts David, and David confesses, "I have sinned against the Lord (verse 13)."  Second came the confession.  Nathan replies to David in the same verse, "The Lord has taken away your sin."  So third came the forgiveness.

And then what?  David didn't wallow in self-pity, or throw himself to the wolves because of his unrighteousness.  Quite the contrary!  The key is in the fourth step:  David accepted God's forgiveness.  He was willing to be made new!  Of course, there were consequences, as David and Bathsheba's baby died.  But even that death didn't stop David from believing in God's goodness and in God's ability to create a new life in David! 

If you know me at all, you'll hear me give the following analogy.  I always use it!  When you lived in sin, that sin built a house.  You lived in that house because you had no where else to go.  But Jesus came along, and with the sound of a hammer and spike, that house fell to the ground.  Completely obliterated.  Gone.  He built you a new house - a home - full of love, forgiveness, and football (according to the Audio Adrenaline song!). 

But that crafty devil comes alongside you and whispers in your ear:  "You don't deserve that house.  Come back to the house you belong in."  And you are tempted to pick up a brick and some mortar, a board and some nails, and rebuild that house.  No matter that the materials are faulty, that it smells like a sewer and the landscaping is barren.  Satan knows how tempted you are to go back, not because you want to sin, but because you don't believe you deserve anything else.

I'm here to tell you something - believe it!  B-E-L-I-E-V-E IT!  How many times must we be told that He wants us, that He has pursued us throughout eternity, that He created us to be His?  At some point it has to become a choice, an act of your will to believe.  Jesus said in Mark 9:23, "All things are possible to him who believes."  The man to whom Jesus was speaking cried out:  "Lord I believe!  Help my unbelief!"

So cry out to Him today.  Believe.  It's your choice.  Does God love us?  How many more ways can He say it?

Keep Blazing.