"Have mercy on me, O God, because of Your unfailing love. Because of Your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against You, and You alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in Your sight. You will be proved right in what You say, and Your judgment against me is just. For I was born a sinner--yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. But You desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.
Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Oh, give me back my joy again; You have broken me--now let me rejoice. Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Do not banish me from Your presence, and don't take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and make me willing to obey You.
Then I will teach Your ways to rebels, and they will return to You. Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of Your forgiveness. Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth my praise You.
You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice You desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then You will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit--with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be sacrificed on Your altar." (Psalm 51 NLT)
Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Oh, give me back my joy again; You have broken me--now let me rejoice. Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Do not banish me from Your presence, and don't take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and make me willing to obey You.
Then I will teach Your ways to rebels, and they will return to You. Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of Your forgiveness. Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth my praise You.
You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice You desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then You will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit--with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be sacrificed on Your altar." (Psalm 51 NLT)
Hello, Mrs. Kurtz. (from previous blog)
You brought up an interesting point about the difference between justifying sin and justifying sinners. Justification is God pardoning us so we are "not guilty" under His grace as seen in Romans 3:24, "all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ". God condemns sin, but justifies people by removing the penalty for sin. Sin is wrong, so it is not justified.
As sinners, our debt was suffering for eternity as a result of our evil. Since we are unable to carry the weight and punishment of sin, Jesus' blood covered the debt (Romans 5:8-9).
I think it's fascinating how God could have easily let us take the punishment we deserved, but because of His Micah 6:8 merciful nature, He chose to pardon us. We deserve death, but Jesus' sacrifice justifies us. Jesus was perfect and didn't deserve death, but He died out of love for us. He was given a choice, and He chose to save our lives over His.
Seeing that we have been given the option of salvation through Jesus, we should respond with repentance: asking God's forgiveness and trusting Him to save us. After we come to God with repentant hearts, we have been forgiven, so the next step is turning from our sinful nature and following God instead.
I'm not sure if I correctly used/interpreted the word "justify," so please let me know if it means something else. I'm also a little confused about the word "redeem" in the Biblical context.
Dear friend,
Let me reiterate how delighted I am at the thought and study that you put into God's Word! This is a habit that I pray you will keep throughout your life.
You did a great job of breaking down and applying the word "justify". As a "word nerd," I love to look at how words are used, and what words are related to other words. Obviously we can see connections to "justify": just, justice, justification, justified, adjust, and so on.
The following links show some of the definitions of these words. I'll take just a moment to point out some things to ponder:
Just (as defined by Merriam-Webster): "what is right" (But, how does the world determine what is right if they do not hold to a source for what is right?)
Just (a study of the word origins used in the Bible): righteous, just, according to right, in the right, equitable ("right" as God's Word declares it--God is our standard of right).
Justify (as defined by Merriam-Webster): to prove, show, judge, regard, treat as righteous
Here is where justifying our sin comes in: we find ways to prove (show, judge...) that what we are doing is right, according to a standard other than God's. One of the sad verses that stands out to me is from Judges: "In those days Israel had no king. All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes." (Judges 17:6, as always, it helps to read the context: the chapter, or the entire book).
Justify (a study of the word origins used in the Bible): to make righteous, to defend the cause of, to show what is right, to show to be righteous, to declare righteous
And here is our hope and our joy: Christ's sacrifice made us righteous! We were declared to be righteous, in good standing with God. We are no longer seen by our sin, but by the righteousness of Christ. Our sins weren't excused; they were paid for by punishment. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
God is just; He is the standard of right. We fall short of the standard, and we deserve death and hell, not mercy. Yet, because of His great love for us, He took our punishment. He made us right. That is an overwhelming truth.
In our sin-befuddled world, we will often hear words like "just" and "justice," and even "right". But everyone has a different idea of what those words mean, and how they should be applied. If people reject the God who is just, they reject His just ways (Romans 1:18-32).
(Nerd Note: I've long been fascinated by the fact that we use "Justification" for how we align words on a paper: left justified, right justified, center justified. Even in our writing we see the importance of aligning to a standard. Imagine if we didn't. How could we make sense of the writing? Understanding that life needs a standard to live by is built into us. Yet God's righteous way is rejected, and even despised, in the world today.)
You brought up an interesting point about the difference between justifying sin and justifying sinners. Justification is God pardoning us so we are "not guilty" under His grace as seen in Romans 3:24, "all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ". God condemns sin, but justifies people by removing the penalty for sin. Sin is wrong, so it is not justified.
As sinners, our debt was suffering for eternity as a result of our evil. Since we are unable to carry the weight and punishment of sin, Jesus' blood covered the debt (Romans 5:8-9).
I think it's fascinating how God could have easily let us take the punishment we deserved, but because of His Micah 6:8 merciful nature, He chose to pardon us. We deserve death, but Jesus' sacrifice justifies us. Jesus was perfect and didn't deserve death, but He died out of love for us. He was given a choice, and He chose to save our lives over His.
Seeing that we have been given the option of salvation through Jesus, we should respond with repentance: asking God's forgiveness and trusting Him to save us. After we come to God with repentant hearts, we have been forgiven, so the next step is turning from our sinful nature and following God instead.
I'm not sure if I correctly used/interpreted the word "justify," so please let me know if it means something else. I'm also a little confused about the word "redeem" in the Biblical context.
Dear friend,
Let me reiterate how delighted I am at the thought and study that you put into God's Word! This is a habit that I pray you will keep throughout your life.
You did a great job of breaking down and applying the word "justify". As a "word nerd," I love to look at how words are used, and what words are related to other words. Obviously we can see connections to "justify": just, justice, justification, justified, adjust, and so on.
The following links show some of the definitions of these words. I'll take just a moment to point out some things to ponder:
Just (as defined by Merriam-Webster): "what is right" (But, how does the world determine what is right if they do not hold to a source for what is right?)
Just (a study of the word origins used in the Bible): righteous, just, according to right, in the right, equitable ("right" as God's Word declares it--God is our standard of right).
Justify (as defined by Merriam-Webster): to prove, show, judge, regard, treat as righteous
Here is where justifying our sin comes in: we find ways to prove (show, judge...) that what we are doing is right, according to a standard other than God's. One of the sad verses that stands out to me is from Judges: "In those days Israel had no king. All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes." (Judges 17:6, as always, it helps to read the context: the chapter, or the entire book).
Justify (a study of the word origins used in the Bible): to make righteous, to defend the cause of, to show what is right, to show to be righteous, to declare righteous
And here is our hope and our joy: Christ's sacrifice made us righteous! We were declared to be righteous, in good standing with God. We are no longer seen by our sin, but by the righteousness of Christ. Our sins weren't excused; they were paid for by punishment. "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
God is just; He is the standard of right. We fall short of the standard, and we deserve death and hell, not mercy. Yet, because of His great love for us, He took our punishment. He made us right. That is an overwhelming truth.
In our sin-befuddled world, we will often hear words like "just" and "justice," and even "right". But everyone has a different idea of what those words mean, and how they should be applied. If people reject the God who is just, they reject His just ways (Romans 1:18-32).
(Nerd Note: I've long been fascinated by the fact that we use "Justification" for how we align words on a paper: left justified, right justified, center justified. Even in our writing we see the importance of aligning to a standard. Imagine if we didn't. How could we make sense of the writing? Understanding that life needs a standard to live by is built into us. Yet God's righteous way is rejected, and even despised, in the world today.)
- What makes a justice system successful? What corrupts it?
- Why might the world want to reject God?
- Whose standards of right and wrong do you follow?
Heavenly Father, You are just, and you are the One who justifies us. We thank You for making us right before You. We could not and we cannot do it ourselves. We want to live according to Your standard of right. Will You dwell in us, fill us, and lead us into all righteousness?
*We'll have to talk about "redeem" in another blog; this is really long (sorry)!
*We'll have to talk about "redeem" in another blog; this is really long (sorry)!
"Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what He did for me. For I cried out to Him for help, praising Him as I spoke. If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer. Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw His unfailing love from me."
(Psalm 66:16-20 NLT)
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