Christian Restoration - The Text Messages

A brother in Christ asked me recently whether I counted my past life as Paul considered his to have been in (Philippians 3:7-8) – as “loss,” “dung” (KJV), or “rubbish” (NKJV). I said to him, “yes and no,” because I believe that Paul was referring to things like his reputation, education, status among men, and even his passion or “zeal” for God prior to knowing the Lord Jesus Christ – his “confidence in his flesh” (v.3-4) when he said it; I don’t think Paul meant things like the way God was getting his attention in those days. I don’t think that Paul meant “the goads” of the Lord (Acts 9:5) including the devotion of the followers of Christ, whom Paul persecuted, as they faced death or imprisonment for faith in Jesus as Stephen did in (Acts 6:8-7:60).

Why did I say yes and no? Because although my past life was in many ways, a deplorable moral train wreck; along the way, God used some of the things from my past to get my attention.

You see, for most of my life, I have been aware of God because of those things.

As a young teenager I would sing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in front of my house in the morning, while I was waiting for the bus or a ride to school – because somewhere I learned that Jesus was a Lion. I wouldn’t have called it worship because I didn’t know what that was but I was singing it to Him.

Silly, I know.

I wasn’t really ‘raised’ in church but I went to CCD as a kid – I was a kind of black sheep to the nuns who taught there, but I learned some things about Jesus there too.

Then I heard the rock opera, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” I didn’t know that it was meant to mock Jesus rather than exalt Him so, year after year as 97 Rock in Buffalo NY played the entire work on Easter Sunday, I would listen and sing the songs as an act of remembrance and one day I watched the movie by the same title. On that day, as I watched, Jesus was nailed to a cross while many stood near Him, mocking and laughing and His disciples boarded a bus leaving Him alone to die on the cross – I wept…I cried hard. I asked my mom, “Why did He die like that?” and “Why did, how could His friends leave Him there to die?” Questions that would be answered several years later, on the day I gave my life to Him who gave His for me.

Just because I was aware of God didn’t mean that I knew Him or had accurate knowledge about Him either; the fact was that I really knew very little about Him. For instance, as I grew older and my sins increased, I came to view God as a “three strikes and you’re out” kind of God. Maybe it was because what little exposure I did have to what He is like came from people who taught that you could earn your way into Heaven by doing good. On Easter Sunday morning 1988, I entered into church with the overwhelming conviction that I had sinned one too many times and after hearing a message that involved a gospel presentation when I finally learned the answer to WHY Jesus died like He did, in tears I came forward to ask Him to save my soul.

Did I come to understand Him fully in that hour? No. Did I turn from all of my sins in that hour? No.

I began a new life in Christ, in that hour. I began a journey of transformation, in that hour.

Have I had doubts about God since then? No.

Have I ever had doubts about myself and my relationship to God since then? …Yes, occasionally and especially when I forget that the only works which count for eternal life are the works that Jesus Christ did to save me.

I’m still on that journey today and I have learned a few things about myself and about God during the 32 years since my first encounter with Him on the road I had been traveling. It is from those lessons that I write in order to help those on the road to keep headed in the right direction and also in order to introduce others to the Son of God who died and rose for them like He did for me.

Over the years, the Lord has used tragedy, danger and answered prayer to draw me nearer to Him in faith but the one thing that He has consistently used to humble, refine and draw me nearer to Himself is the mirror He left for us which is His holy word.

More on that later this week….

King David, arguably the greatest Old Testament king of Israel was brave in the face of danger, courageous before giants, humble before God, respectful of God’s anointed and a worshipful man of God. Of him, Paul quoting (1 Samuel 13:14) wrote in (Acts 13:22):

“…‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’”

But King David was not without his flaws, he was after all – human and EVERY human since Adam is a sinner at heart. The Bible tells us of a time when David was in the wrong place at the right time; this was at the time (see 2 Samuel 11:1) “when kings go out to battle;” his warriors went out but David stayed home. I do not know why David stayed back but I do know that just as “idle hands can be the devils playground” – “If you are where you shouldn’t be, it is very likely that you will be tempted to do what you shouldn’t do.”

We all KNOW his story and by the way, that is one more evidence that the Bible is a work of God and not men – if men alone had written it of themselves they surely would never have spoken of all the flaws and failings of their lives as the scriptures do. David saw a woman bathing in the evening light, he looked twice (at least), inquired about her, ignored the fact that she was another mans wife, slept with her and later, after learning that she was pregnant attempted to cover up his sin. First he tried to trick Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba by bringing him home from the battle and encouraging him to spend the night with his wife in the hopes that he might claim the child as his own, conceived on that night; but Uriah was more honorable than that and he would not go in to his wife. Then David further attempted to cover his sin up by seeing to it that before Bathsheba began to be obviously pregnant her husband would have died in battle.

Now, I’m not sure that I know what David was thinking except that he was experiencing the same kind of panic we do when we sin and frantically attempt to cover it up as if covering it up changes the fact that we did it.

The fact is that you cannot pull the wool over an all seeing God’s eyes; His word declares in (Galatians 6:7) that “God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” and (Numbers 32:23) “(y)our sins will find us out.”

At least nine months passed from the time of his adultery and the birth of the child conceived between David and Bathsheba when Nathan the prophet came to confront the king (see 2 Samuel 12) about it. It was then that David confessed and the penalty of sin, which is always death was assessed – David would live but the child born in adultery would die (see 2 Samuel 2:14).

Did God act out of spite, vindictiveness, unreasonable wrath or hate? No, He had a plan to forgive and restore David. (Psalm 51) is the prayer which David prayed after Nathan departed and during the fast which the king entered into until the moment he knew that his child was gone. The Psalm is a penitential psalm, that is, it is a psalm of confession and repentance to the Lord from the heart of David. In it we see conviction of sin (v.3), acknowledgement of sin (v.4, 14), sorrow for sin (v.17) and a cry for the mercy and forgiveness of God concerning the relationship damaged by sin (v.10-12). I recently heard a recording of (Psalm 51) sung in Latin and titled “Miserere Mei, Deus” taking its title from the first verse of that Psalm: “have mercy upon me, God; ” reading the Psalm as I listened led me to think that I was literally hearing David’s heart in that moment (click the link to listen to that recording on YouTube https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3v9unphfi0)

Perhaps you’ve been in David’s shoes and as a lover of God, found yourself in the wrong place at the right time where you took advantage of the moment and sinned big. Perhaps you, like David have concealed and covered up rather than confessed your sin to Him. Perhaps you confessed and were forgiven by Him but failed to forgive yourself. Whichever the case may be, once you have dealt with the sin and understand that God has forgiven it you still need to do a few things:

Put it behind you (Phil.3:13).
Set a guard over your heart (Prov.4:23; Job 31:1).
Cultivate an extreme sense of the immediate presence of the Lord – whenever you’re in a room alone consider that Jesus is actually in the room with you.

My friend, I get the feeling that for those nine months or so King David found it hard to pray and even harder to hear from the Lord. Has He been silent in your life lately? If He has, I’m guessing that you know why and while His silence may be the consequence of some yet to be dealt with sin or a test to see if you’ll wait to hear from Him before you act it is always meant to draw us into a deeper search and greater desire for His voice and presence in our lives.

Draw near to God and He WILL draw near to you….cry out to Him today.

Category: Christian Restoration

My Journey

Miserere Mei, Deus