Psalm 51 cont.
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
We cannot escape our sinful natures. We are born with them, it is implanted upon us at the earliest: conception. The only way for us to be freed of this unholy nature is to break it, completely destroy it, kill it and be reborn. This is what Christ means when He speaks of being “born again.” “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” This is what must happen to our old nature, we must execute it, it must be hung upon a cross as Christ was. This is not merely death that Paul speaks of, it is a humiliating, horrible death. Our old nature must be so abhorred, we must be so completely disgusted by it that we want to be rid of it, we want to be free from it. For the old nature contains nothing but unrighteousness, greed, lust, hatred, all the things that the Lord, and by extension, as His servants, us, hates. This will not be easy, but it will be fulfilling and the “way unto salvation.” This is the path that the Lord of Hosts has called us to walk, may we walk it with pleasure and everlasting joy! For that is one of the many fruits of the Spirit, and without rebirth, we cannot experience any of these on a grand scale at all. For the lost will have joy, they will have love, but they will never experience the fullness of these things, how great and wonderful they can be, unless they experience them through the Lord. “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Leave the way of unrighteousness for the way of the Almighty Creator of the Universe! Look up at night, what do you see? Assuming you don’t live in the city, there are hundreds of thousands of tiny little stars that fill the sky. Just look and realize, this was all created so that I might bring praise to the Lord God Almighty. The observable universe is roughly 93 billion light years across, and that’s only the observable bit, and it was all created for this tiny speck on the outer reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy. How awesome is that! How humbling to think that the Lord made all this beauty, all this outstanding diversity of life for us. He gave us dominion over it, He gave us the power to rule His planet, His universe. We are so tiny, so sinful, and the Lord has give all of this to us. Praise His Holy Name!
“Behold, you desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Fill me with joy and gladness; let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.”
God desires truth in our innermost being. He desires to make His habitation in our heart, so that we might become a mighty Temple to His honor. He does not wish to share His Temple with the devil, with sin, for that would be a house divided against itself, which Christ said “cannot stand.” No, we must either be one way or the other. Either wholly dedicated to God, which should be the only option in our minds, or reject the Almighty Creator of the Universe, and embrace our sinful natures. The Lord of lords has given us this option, and what an easy decision it is! There should be no thoughts in our minds of choosing anything but the way of the Lord. Some might say, ‘Well, I can reject God but not give my life over to Satan. It is not an either or, I will just reject them both.’ Oh foolish human! By rejecting God we are naturally accepting His greatest enemy, our greatest enemy. There can be no simple rejection of both, for either you do the works of the Lord, righteousness, or the works of the devil, sinning. If one rejects righteousness, naturally the only other option is unrighteousness. There is no neutrality. There is no middle ground. Rejection of God is acceptance of Satan. “No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” The truth of the Lord is that we accept His holy commands and live in righteousness before Him. It is not a demanding request, rather one that will bring us to shine the light of the Lord to all whom we contact. It is the best way for us to live. For just as the Lord commanded many ordinances and ceremonies for the Jews in the Old Testament, so that they would not get food poisoning or sacrifice their children to Molech, so did He give us ordinances. However, He has given us just one: be holy. What an awesome privilege it is to be holy before the Lord! What incredible mercy He has shown to us, allowing us to be His servants! Praise the Lord through your whole life, through all that you are and do, bring glory to His Almighty Name. Praise the Name of the Lord!
