Victorious Unfolding

Who perceives his unintentional sins?

Cleanse me from my hidden faults.

Moreover, keep Your servant from willful sins;

do not let them rule over me.

Then I will be innocent

and cleansed from blatant rebellion.

May the words of my mouth

and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable to You,

LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

 (Psalm 19:12-14 [HCSB])

We've heard and/or read verse fourteen before today. We need to put it into perspective with verses twelve and thirteen. Today, let’s consider these verses together and understand what God wants to teach us.

Remember when you were a teenage or a pre-teen. You had more freedom, but you tested the boundaries to see how much power you had at home and school. One day, you decided to stay at school “to be with your friends” and arrived home later than your parents wanted. On another day, a friend needed help to understand what the teacher taught in class. You stayed at school to help him understand, then lost track of time. This good deed made you later getting home than your parents wanted. Which of these is a blatant sin and which an unintentional sin? Are the repercussions for the late home arrival going to be the same? Probably not, but why?

¹² Who perceives his unintentional sins?

Cleanse me from my hidden faults.

Verse twelve speaks about unintentional sins (accidents, mistakes, errors), not rebellious disobedience. The Psalmist said we do not know our unintentional sins. Often, after the result of our mistake occurs, we realize we sinned. One reason we may have sinned is we didn't realize God speaks against those types of things. Another possibility is we didn't realize the words from our mouth contained unintended harshness. These sins were unintentional and, possibly, unknown to us until God told us in our time with Him. Sometimes God makes us aware of these mistakes and accidents as we read our Bible. Other times, He will make us aware of them as we listen to a sermon or as we pray. Perhaps He will teach about them through a devotional. The important point is that, once shown, we acknowledge them, ask forgiveness from God, then ask for strength to live God’s way so that sin doesn’t happen again. (Note: Since we from that point know that action, word, or thought is a sin, no longer can we say the sin is unintentional.)

¹³ Moreover, keep Your servant from willful sins;

do not let them rule over me.

Then I will be innocent

and cleansed from blatant rebellion.

Verse thirteen speaks of another set of actions, thoughts, and words. These are willful sins. Willful sins are the deliberate breaking of a law, command, or precept. If you have children or remember being a child, you remember a child often tests or pushes the boundaries to see if he or she can get away with something. He or she will check to see how firm the boundary is. These actions, thoughts are words are willful sins. Willful sins fall in the list of moral laws concerned with things like killing, stealing, lying, etc. God explicitly commands in the Ten Commandments, do not kill, do not steal, and do not bear false witness along with several other commands. Another sin that falls into this willful sin category is letting your neighbor starve when you have food in your home. Jesus taught about loving your neighbor as you love yourself in Matthew 22:37-40. Willful sins are rebellion against the moral laws, commands, and precepts of God.

For both types of sin, unintentional and willful, the Psalmist, once made aware of them, imperatively requested God to cleanse him from them and not let them rule/reign over him. The Psalmist recognized he had no power to cleanse himself from sin or to keep himself from sinning. He was powerless. The Psalmist recognized God's holiness and ability to make a person holy. He recognized God’s ability to guide a person's mind, thoughts, and actions. God can do these things because He is omnipotent (all-powerful) and Ruler of all created things, since He is Yahweh God, the One before time and beyond time.

¹⁴ May the words of my mouth

and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable to You,

LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

With God's cleansing of and rule over him, the Psalmist declared God made him clean/righteous. Being cleansed from sin and made righteous makes a person’s words, thoughts, and meditations acceptable to God. When God cleanses a person and reigns over him or her, the person can be in His presence and raise his or her thoughts, words, and meditations to Him in praise and worship. Only God’s cleansing makes a person clean and able to be in His presence. The Psalmist declared, "Oh Lord, You are my Rock and my Redeemer!" when he realized his cleansing and ability to lead a righteous life came from God.

With God’s rule and strength, He keeps us strong against temptations to sin. He is the One who saves and cleanses us from sin. Because of these, our reaction is to praise and worship Him.

Revisiting your pre-teen self, did you unknowingly break a family rule and experience your parents teaching you why that was not a good thing to do? Probably, they still continued to love, lead, and provide for you. On the other side of the coin, did you intentionally disobey your parents? Did they discipline you? Did your parents continue to love, lead, and provide for you after that? If your answer is yes to each of these, your parents were modeling their parenting after God’s example. If you have read through the Bible, you will encounter examples of when God did not protect or provide for His children, the Israelites, immediately. They had disobeyed Him too many times and needed a stricter discipline. For most of us, having our parents discipline us about a broken rule is all we need to correct our behavior or mistake.

Are you listening to God today?

Today, God is speaking to you. Are you listening to Him? What is He saying to you? God wants to have a love relationship with you. Will you listen as He tells you about your sins? Will you confess your sins to God and ask Him to cleanse you? Will you allow Him to reign in your life as King?

True peace comes with God’s forgiveness and reign in your life.

We each try to delay, block, or deny hearing God when He tells us about our misdeeds, and incorrect words and thoughts. We don't want to face them or Him. Perhaps we refuse to change our lives. Still, what He said won't leave our minds, hearts, and spirits. For peace, I urge you to turn to God in prayer now. Ask Him to make you strong enough to admit your sins and repent. Ask Him to be your Savior and cleanse you. Allow God to reign as King of your life. Experience the growth of your character and your relationship with God as a victorious unfolding.

Your life can be a victorious unfolding with God.

Lord, today, You have shown me a sin, many sins, if I am honest, and I want You to cleanse me from them, please. I have refused to recognize You in the past, but now I give up ruling my life. I give my life to You, Lord. Please take my life and make it what You want and use it for Your purposes. Please, Lord, keep me from being rebellious and hard of heart. Remind me when I stray in that direction, that You are God, and I am not. I am Your's, Lord. You reign supreme. Your love and power never fail. Thank you for cleansing me from my sins and being King over my life. Thank you, Father. Amen.

Declare God: A Psalm 92 Devotional

Declare God: A Psalm 92 Devotional

It is good to give thanks to the Lord
And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
² To declare Your loving-kindness in the morning
And Your faithfulness by night,
³ With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp,
With resounding music upon the lyre.
⁴ For You, O Lord, have made me glad by what You have done,
I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands.

⁵ How great are Your works, O Lord!
Your thoughts are very deep.
⁶ A senseless man has no knowledge,
Nor does a stupid man understand this:
⁷ That when the wicked sprouted up like grass
And all who did iniquity flourished,
It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore.
⁸ But You, O Lord, are on high forever.
⁹ For, behold, Your enemies, O Lord,
For, behold, Your enemies will perish;
All who do iniquity will be scattered.

¹⁰ But You have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;
I have been anointed with fresh oil.
¹¹ And my eye has looked exultantly upon my foes,
My ears hear of the evildoers who rise up against me.
¹² The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree,
He will grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
¹³ Planted in the house of the Lord,
They will flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴ They will still yield fruit in old age;
They shall be full of sap and very green,
¹⁵ To declare that the Lord is upright;
He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. [NASB]

David speaks from a thankfulness in this psalm. Each of us come to days where thanks to God rings from our lips. We have other days when we become too rushed to think about thanking God or we are too overwhelmed with the burdens of life to see beyond what we face at that time. For these kinds of days, we most importantly need to praise God.

When we reach days of despair or difficulties, speaking praise, though it may not at first be in our hearts, renews our hope and lifts our spirits. As we continue speaking praise, what our lips say reaches into our beings, into our hearts, so we begin to take to heart what we are saying. After that, our minds comprehend the depth of the praise and the worthiness of the recipient so that our whole being joins the lips in praise. When we get to this point, we no longer must make ourselves praise the Lord. Instead, it bubbles over from the depths of our soul and nothing can contain it. That is when we realize the despair and difficulties we are facing are nothing compared to God – His greatness and His love.

From this point is where David speaks in Psalm 92. Though he did not know what the next day held, whether enemies would surround him or famine fall on the land, he knew Who was mightier than these and upon Whom he could rely.

David declared it good to thank the Lord and sing praises to Him. Even when in the depths of difficulties, God does not change and is always worthy of praise. David gave reasons God deserves praise as if being majestic almighty God is not enough. He praised Him for what He has and continues to do.

·         Praise God because of His loving-kindness and faithfulness.

·         Praise God for the works of His hands.

·         Praise Him for the depth and wisdom of His thoughts.

·         Praise God because He was, is, and always will reign as Lord over all.

·         Praise God because He always wins the battles and wars against His enemies.

·         Praise God because He judges and He will scatter people who do evil will (so they cannot group up and cause devastation)

·         Praise God because He provides abundantly so you are strong, have all you need, and are His child.

·         Praise God because He gives hope knowing our foes will be defeated.

·         Praise God because He has given you deep roots to stand strong with him and the ability to bend and not break, like the palm tree, when difficulties arise.

·         Praise God that He keeps you standing strong and upright like the cedars of Lebanon.

·         Praise God that He planted you in His house as His child so you will flourish and dwell in His courts.

·         Praise God that He will not discard us when we age, but continues to use us to yield fruit in old age. We are never cast aside and always taken care of.

·         Praise God because He is righteous and strong. He is the rock upon which I stand.

·         Praise God no unrighteousness is in Him. We can trust He is always fair, always loving, always right.

We can join David in this psalm. I believe when he wrote this He was remembering his walk with the Lord from the time he was a lonely shepherd to his current time as king. David also remembered who God was and had been for His chosen people Israel. With the magnitude of who God is and what He has done for all His children, David could only praise God. Nothing would stop him from praising God.

Whether we are in a place of difficulties or ease, reading David’s psalms re-center us in who God is, and who we are and what we face. As children of God, we are small in the face of trials, but our God is greater than anything we face and wiser than any person. He will get us through it, but more than that, our relationship with Him can grow as we stand back and let God be God and in control of everything. Then, we will be able to declare God’s loving-kindness, mercy, and righteousness as David did here.