{This post is an excerpt from my devotional ebook Perspective Reset: 28 readings and meditations from the Psalms. The devotional is FREE to all of my newsletter subscribers and I would love for you to download it. Click HERE to subscribe and download the ebook.}
Psalm 32:1-11
I often turn to the Psalms when I’m feeling broken, when the weight of my sin is heavy on my heart. As I’ve walked through times of life where condemnation is crushing me and I can’t seem to fathom God’s forgiveness, the Psalms of David, like this one, are particularly comforting.
David knew what it was like to sin greatly. He was an adulterer, who then ordered a murder to cover up his adultery. Yet another time he decided to number his armies to see how great his power had grown, ignoring the warnings God sent him to not do it. In this latter case, God brought a plague on the people David ruled as punishment. Because of David’s sin, hundreds of innocent people died. Can you imagine the weight of that sin? The shame? The pain?
In these verses (v 3-4), David described the pain of living with unconfessed sin. God knows all of our actions, including our sins, so there is no use in acting like we are hiding them from Him. Too often I find myself refusing to confess under the excuse that God knows my sin anyways, because the act of confessing is often incredibly painful.
And yet David, this great sinner, was also known as the "man after God’s own heart". No one else in the Bible had this glorious title bestowed on them. How?
His secret is found in these verses. David proclaims the blessings of being forgiven by God, and the beauty of confessing our sins to Him.
Even though God already knows our sins, He wants us confess them to Him. There is an incredible power in speaking or writing a confession of sin to God. It brings a clarity and gravity to the sin and allows us to feel the full weight of it.
Feeling the full weight of our sin initially seems like a bad thing, but instead, it actually allows us to then experience the full freedom from it that God desires to give us.
Will we walk in the "sorrows of the wicked” who try to hide their sin? Or will we stand with David, baring the ugliest parts our hearts to God, and surrounded in His “steadfast love”? The difference is confession. Honest, simple confession to God will bring us the ability to experience full freedom from our sins.
{Verse to Meditate On Today}
"I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah"
Psalm 32:5
{Take some time to write a confession to God today for whatever sins might be weighing on your heart, trusting that the God who forgave David will forgive you.}
