Psalm 85:1-13

Forgiveness is the greatest blessing that God bestows on His children.  Our greatest need is for forgiveness and God grants it to us based on the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.  The children of Israel had experienced the joy of forgiveness on many occasions.  They had seen God cover their sins and take away all the iniquity of the people.  God’s peace was the reality of their experience, but it was short lived.  Unfortunately, the people turned back to their sin and once again were facing the consequences of their sin.  Sin keeps coming back over and over again in our lives.  It is never content to be defeated once or twice or twenty times.  Sin always seems to find a way to worm itself back into our lives make us miserable all over again.  When that happens, we can do nothing else but what this Psalm does: cry out to the Lord for help.

WE MUST ASK THE LORD FOR RESTORATION: Israel had already experienced the joy of restoration before the Lord.  God’s forgiveness had been sweet and their joy had been full and complete.  However, that fellowship with the Lord was broken once again when the people turned from God to worship idols and lived in disobedience to the Word of God.  Once again the people found themselves suffering because of their sin and in desperate need of God’s forgiveness.  They were feeling the wrath of God and they were desperate to be restored to experience the favor of God again.  It may seem like God’s wrath on sin lasts forever, but the reality is that His wrath lasts a far shorter period than our disobedience.  We experience only a portion of God’s true wrath and indignation towards sin so that we will be hesitant to fall back into the same sin again and again.  We must always recognize that God is our only hope for restoration and we must be ready and willing to cry out to Him so that we can experience the joy of His forgiveness and return to a restored fellowship with Him.


WE MUST ASK THE LORD FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS: When God restores us, He restores us to a place of righteousness: a place where we walk in fear of Him and in light of the glory of His person.  God is the conciliation of faithfulness and righteousness with love and peace.  In God we find the perfect balance of grace and justice.  When we walk with God we see His faithfulness flow like water from a spring and we see His righteousness fall like rain from the sky.  God does not merely forgive sin.  He transforms sinners.  God makes His righteousness available to men through the glorious work of Christ.  We are greatly blessed in Him and can experience the joy of walking in Him and His righteousness because of His awesome forgiveness.  We must never attempt to attain forgiveness apart from a desire for righteousness.  God does not grant one without the other.  We must hunger and thirst for His character to be produced in our lives.  His righteousness in us should be the greatest delight of our hearts.

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