Longing for Jesus

Thoughts from my reading in Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul David Tripp. Devotional is indented.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation. Psalm 51:14

It is dramatic anticipation at its finest. It is the best of foreshadowing. Every line drips with the drama of the necessity of what's to come. It's one of those moments when it's very clear that the present makes no sense without the future. If you know your Bible at all, you can't read Psalm 51 without feeling it. If this psalm has no future, then its cries are the vain screams of the tormented heart of a desperate man and little more. David's entire hope in the present is tied to an event in the future. No future, no hope. Welcome to the story of redemption.

You see, David's sin, Nathan's confrontation, and the resultant conviction and confession are a mini-chapter in the grand, origin-to-destiny story of redemption. David's prayer for forgiveness cries for more than a God who's willing to forgive. David's plea reaches out for an actual means of forgiveness.

As this meditation goes on to point out, there was a system of sacrifices that “covered” sin but something was missing. The blood of bulls and goats wasn’t enough. There was covering but not cleansing.

David didn't fully understand it, but the cries he prayed and penned in Psalm 51 were a cry for the final Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the drama of this psalm. In acknowledging the power and pervasiveness of his sin, David isn't reaching out only for full and complete forgiveness, but for deliverance as well, the kind of deliverance that can only be found in the spilt blood of the promised Messiah, who would someday hang willingly on the hill of Calvary. Psalm 51 is a hymn of longing. Psalm 51 longs for Jesus.

Living on this side of the cross, it’s hard to imagine what it must have been like before. It’s easy to take things for granted. I know what the Bible says about what Jesus did on the cross. I know that I can come boldly before the throne of grace but before the cross, sacrifice was brought with fear. I have the indwelling Spirit of God living in me that bears witness that I am a child of God.

As David prayed for mercy, unfailing love, and great compassion powerful enough to wash away transgression and create purity of heart, he wasn't praying for a thing; no he was praying for a Person. Jesus is the mercy for which David prays. Jesus is the unfailing love that is his hope. Jesus is the compassion for which he cries.

Every time you acknowledge your sin, you long for Jesus too. But you're not longing for the final sacrifice, because it's been made. No, you and I long for the final deliverance. We long for that moment when we'll be taken to the place where sin will be no more.

I do understand that longing; I have it. I long for a place of righteousness, where sin will be no more and where I will be all that God wants me to be.

A question from the meditation:

Is there any evidence in your life of hopelessness, discouragement, cynicism, or despair? Take time to confess your struggle to believe and bask once again in the reliable promises of your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yes, these things can be a part of my life. I see what I am inside and I see the effects of sin all around me. In losing sight of the victory to come, I can become tempted to give up.

Philip


Get this book and join the journey:

Olive Tree – PDA or Smartphone

Amazon - paper