Create
Read Psalm 51.
To create: to bring something into existence. To cause something to happen or come into being for the first time.
We talk about God being the creator because he caused this whole universe to come into being for the first time. Before, there was nothing. Suddenly, there was creation.
We look at someone who invents something new as its "creator" (though theologically you can argue that God gave that person the inspiration, but go with me here...). Something new that has never been seen before suddenly is available to the human race. You can say Thomas Edison created the light bulb, or that Henry Edward Roberts created the personal computer. Many television shows list, among their credits, a "creator."
To create something is to bring into being something that never existed before. That makes David's choice of words in the midst of his prayer for forgiveness even more fascinating. He prays to God, "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (51:10).
Most of us know this prayer comes out of David's adultery with Bathsheba and his consequent murder of her husband. When he's confronted with his sin, David gets on his face and prays this prayer (among, I'm sure, many other prayers). But in the midst of this prayer, he realizes something profound, something theologians and Biblical scholars have spent centuries trying to tell us. He realizes that his sin is who he is. He isn't a good person who happens to sin. He sins because he is a sinner.
We write things like this off today. From "big sins" to "small sins," we call them other things today. Mistake. Misstep. Snafu. Blunder. Oversight. And on and on the list could go. But God only has one word for it: sin. David realizes very clearly that we are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. And we cannot get out of the loop without God's forgiveness, empowerment and enabling. Simply put, we cannot overcome our sin without God. God himself must create something new, something that has never existed before: a clean heart within our lives.
And God longs to do just that. God will do just that. All we have to do is, like David, come to him, confess and repent of our sin, and ask God for that clean heart. He will create it within us, because he is a creator who loves to do just that. He will make us new. He will create us anew. All we have to do is ask, like David did.
To create: to bring something into existence. To cause something to happen or come into being for the first time.
We talk about God being the creator because he caused this whole universe to come into being for the first time. Before, there was nothing. Suddenly, there was creation.
We look at someone who invents something new as its "creator" (though theologically you can argue that God gave that person the inspiration, but go with me here...). Something new that has never been seen before suddenly is available to the human race. You can say Thomas Edison created the light bulb, or that Henry Edward Roberts created the personal computer. Many television shows list, among their credits, a "creator."
To create something is to bring into being something that never existed before. That makes David's choice of words in the midst of his prayer for forgiveness even more fascinating. He prays to God, "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (51:10).
Most of us know this prayer comes out of David's adultery with Bathsheba and his consequent murder of her husband. When he's confronted with his sin, David gets on his face and prays this prayer (among, I'm sure, many other prayers). But in the midst of this prayer, he realizes something profound, something theologians and Biblical scholars have spent centuries trying to tell us. He realizes that his sin is who he is. He isn't a good person who happens to sin. He sins because he is a sinner.
We write things like this off today. From "big sins" to "small sins," we call them other things today. Mistake. Misstep. Snafu. Blunder. Oversight. And on and on the list could go. But God only has one word for it: sin. David realizes very clearly that we are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. And we cannot get out of the loop without God's forgiveness, empowerment and enabling. Simply put, we cannot overcome our sin without God. God himself must create something new, something that has never existed before: a clean heart within our lives.
And God longs to do just that. God will do just that. All we have to do is, like David, come to him, confess and repent of our sin, and ask God for that clean heart. He will create it within us, because he is a creator who loves to do just that. He will make us new. He will create us anew. All we have to do is ask, like David did.
His love is overwhelming even when our choices and heart are underwhelming.
ReplyDelete