{"id":956,"date":"2010-03-27T07:00:32","date_gmt":"2010-03-27T06:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/?p=956"},"modified":"2010-02-20T12:16:24","modified_gmt":"2010-02-20T11:16:24","slug":"lent-devotions-2010-saturday-27-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/2010\/03\/27\/lent-devotions-2010-saturday-27-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Lent Devotions 2010: Saturday 27 March"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHave mercy on me, O God,
\n<\/em><\/strong>according to Your steadfast love;
\n<\/em><\/strong>according to Your abundant mercy
\n<\/em><\/strong>blot out my transgressions.
\n<\/em><\/strong>Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
\n<\/em><\/strong>and cleanse me from my sin!\u201d\u00a0 Psalm 51:1-2<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

King David, the writer of this Psalm, appeals to God’s mercy.\u00a0 There is such a contrast, a real gulf, between God’s steadfast love and abundant mercy and David’s transgressions, iniquity and sin.\u00a0 God hates sin, but at the same time He is compassionate and merciful, “He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD.” (Psalm 33.5)\u00a0 Psalm 116.5 sums up God’s nature in these words, “Gracious and righteous is the LORD, full of compassion is our God.”\u00a0 Psalm 51 is in the Bible because it is applicable to us all.\u00a0 The title indicates that this Psalm relates to David’s penitence after Nathan the prophet confronted him about Bathsheba.\u00a0 The details are in 1 Samuel chapters 11-12.\u00a0 David thought he had got away with adultery and murder.\u00a0 But God saw.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God knew.\u00a0 God sent His messenger, Nathan the prophet.\u00a0 Via the parable of the lamb, David condemned himself with his own words, “The man who has done this deserves to die.”\u00a0 Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” (12.6-7)\u00a0<\/p>\n

We may not be adulterers or murderers, but Jesus teaches that there is a higher standard in the Kingdom of God . Lust is as serious as adultery, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5.28)\u00a0 Anger is as serious as murder (Matthew 5.21-22).\u00a0 Jesus perceived that the breaking of the commandments starts in the mind: adultery starts with lust and murder starts with anger.\u00a0 These sins of the mind are not public, but God sees; God knows!\u00a0 We try to excuse ourselves.\u00a0 We may say, “I was only appreciating the beautiful form of natural beauty – that is not lust.”\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 Maybe not!\u00a0 Likewise with anger – we may be seething in our hearts, but not disclose our inner thoughts, even by an expression on our faces, but God sees; God knows!\u00a0 God’s standard is perfection, “You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5.48)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Psalm 51 inspired one of the most beautiful pieces of Church music – indeed of all music – \u201cAllegri’s Miserere\u201d.\u00a0 With its soaring, ethereal treble notes it is exquisitely beautiful.\u00a0 So much so that the music was a closely guarded secret by the Vatican, until Mozart went to the Sistine Chapel and heard the Miserere.\u00a0 Later Mozart wrote down every single note from memory. (For the details, see https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Miserere_(Allegri)<\/a> )<\/p>\n

But the purpose of the music and the purpose of the poetry is not to provoke us to say, “How beautiful!”\u00a0 Its purpose is to provoke sincere repentance.\u00a0 The Anglican Book of Common Prayer in the confession of the Lord’s Supper says “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness.”\u00a0 There is a feeling today that this is overstated, but just look at the weak state of the church generally in our society!\u00a0 David could only hope for God’s mercy, but we have assurance that if we are truly penitent, God will forgive us, because of what His Son Jesus did for us on the cross at Calvary.<\/p>\n

Thank You for that mercy and forgiveness, O Lord!\u00a0 Amen.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHave mercy on me, O God, according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!\u201d\u00a0 Psalm 51:1-2 King David, the writer of this Psalm, appeals to God’s mercy.\u00a0 There is such a contrast, a real gulf, between God’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lent-devotions-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christlutheranchurch.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}