Comment: If you didn’t read yesterday’s devotional, then maybe it would be a good idea to read it first as it was the first half of Psalm 51 and David has been honest with God and their healthy relationship restored!
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you. – Why does he say this? Is it a requirement of God (Jesus calls us to be His witnesses.)? I think that this is partly true but I think even more David has such a sense of clean-ness and forgiven-ness that he can’t but share this experience both to glorify God and to allow others to enjoy the health of being forgiven by God Himself!
14 Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. – David’s mind flicks back to his guilt and then forward to what being forgiven requires!
15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. – if you cannot speak about the goodness of God to others, I wonder if you have ever really experienced it!
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. – Sacrifices for sin were ordered by God, not as a cure for sin, but as a reminder of the cost of a broken relationship with Him, and as an indicator of the coming of Jesus and the Cross. His real desire is for an honest and repentant heart.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar. – Many sacrifices were for thankfulness, to praise God, to be a sharer in the Community of God’s people! A restored relationship both with God and His people is a ‘foretaste of Heaven’!
Proverbs 17: 22- A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. & Hebrews 12:2 -May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Prayer: Thank You, Father, that following You isn’t dismal or joyless!
As I read it! 