Day of Praise

We, 01/22/14, "Day of Praise"

Psalm 51:10 - "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."

We had basketball practice last night. Hauling three sweaty eighth and ninth grade boys home created a smell that reminded me of my glory days. (Don't laugh too hard.)

In particular, I remember my eighth grade football team from Ross N. Robinson Middle School playing our cross-town rival John Sevier in our final game in Kingsport, Tennessee.

I was the quarterback. (See, I must've been okay.)

We got crushed. (Well, maybe I wasn't that good after all.)

It was pouring down rain, and the field was a mud pit. I remember getting tackled on one play, and my nose literally got rubbed in the dirt, which meant that my face and everything else on the front of me was covered in mud. And since we got crushed, I'm quite sure that I also got placed on my backside on one, two, or ten plays.

The best part of that game for me was the shower after the game. I probably should've been hosed down. But the bottom line was that washing away all that mud made me feel like a new young man.

Kinda like God's forgiveness.

Ya know, David wrote today's verse and all of Psalm 51 after he stunk up the field of life with peeping at women he shouldn't have and then scheming to get one he shouldn't have and then doing the unspeakable as he shouldn't have and then plotting to kill her husband as he shouldn't have. Wow, talk about a spiritually, relationally, emotionally, muddy mess.

When David, in Psalm 51:10, prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me," he was saying, "God, I've stunk up the place. Everything I've touched has become a dirty mess. Please, hose me down."

And God did.

And David became a new man. Not perfect or mistake free, but clean. Refreshed. Forgiven. A new beginning.

Do you have anything in your life that needs to get cleaned up, hosed down, showered off? Give your dirt to God.

A refreshing shower from God awaits you.

Praise God!


Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson