There's a troublesome little phrase that occurs
right in the middle of Psalm 51. As you may know, Psalm 51 is King
David's song of repentance after he committed adultery with Bathsheba,
then murdered her husband to cover up the sin and deception. David got
confronted with the situation, and his response was to repent deeply,
throwing himself on the mercies of God.
Thankfully
for us all, God's mercies are new and fresh every morning. He loves it
when His sons and daughters come to Him to receive mercy, finding
cleansing from sinful deeds that left unaddressed would cause their
souls to rot in shame and defeat. But after David confesses his sin, he
makes this troublesome statement in Psalm 51:6 - "You desire truth in
the inward parts. . . ."
Truth
in the inward parts. That is what God desires from us as His people -
that the inward reality, the hidden places of our hearts line up with
truth. At first glance it doesn't sound all that problematic, but in
our culture truth has been shunted off to the realm of ideas and
doctrinal concepts, while the inward realities of life - our thoughts,
our desires, our priorities and plans - are kept in a different
compartment and pursued by any means possible.
If
there is a relationship we desire, and the pursuit of that person leads
us to compromise our commitment to Jesus, we go for it anyway. If we
find ourselves in a circumstance that exposes some weakness in us, we
make the choice to bend the truth to save face. If there is a position
at work that we want to attain, and it requires some compromise of
ethics or morals, well - surely God would want me to have that extra
income so I can give more to His work, and surely He would want me to
have that higher authority so that I can be more influential in sharing
the gospel, right?
Wrong.
God is not really interested in how much you can give, nor is He
impressed with how much you talk about Him to those around you. He's
not primarily concerned about preserving your reputation, either. What
God cares about is truth in the inward parts - internal formation into
the character and likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. Here's a hint:
this character is developed by the Holy Spirit working in us using the
Beatitudes of Matthew 5:3-12.
You
see, when we try to accomplish something for God with our inward parts
messed up by compromise, we have no more power than a Buddhist trying
to do something for Buddha, or a Muslim trying to accomplish something
for Allah. What sets us apart as believers in Christ is the promise
that this living, powerful Man Jesus will get involved with us and
insert His own powerful activity in partnership with us. We are created
to live in the flow of divine power, but the only way that can happen
with consistency is if we allow the Holy Spirit, who is called the
Spirit of Truth, to have His way with us deep on the inside. You see,
the key to power in Jesus' life is that He doesn't just speak truth -
He is true all the way through His being.
We
have a mistaken notion that because God is a loving and forgiving
Father who embraces us in our brokenness that it is therefore okay for
us to stay in our weakness and compromise. We depend on His forgiveness
and mercy, which is good, but we never appropriate grace in a true way
that empowers us to actually live according to the character of Jesus.
It's amazingly true - His love is unconditional and strong, and yet His
grace enables us to stand and walk out of our messes and into the
newness and power of His life and character. The Beatitudes are the
means of taking hold of this grace and making it work in our lives.
We'll look at them in a more focused way in future articles.
Truth
in the inward parts. That phrase bugs me, and it should. It's what God
wants from me, and His promise is that as I receive His love and mercy,
the empowering grace will be there as well to make it possible for me
to live in truth and experience the power that comes with it.
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