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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