Trevor Johnston's Blog

“Have mercy on me o God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion BLOT out my transgression…

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow…

Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. ”

I couldn’t believe what I was reading last night.  I was feeling so scummy, so sinful, so far away from God.  Every time I feel the weight of my disobedience I always want to get out of it.  I want God to forget it.  I want it to never to have happened.  I don’t want to be cut off.  I want to feel God.  I want to be happy again in Him and I want it right now.  I squirm.

So much of my life I have been taught that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.  I always felt that when I sinned, God left my presence because He couldn’t be close to sin.  My own choices bring my punishment.. distance and sorrow.  Work to get back to Him.  My payment is time in prison until the broken relationship is healed.

My heart cries out for it to be different.  I want my foolish decision to be made ok.  I want everything that I broke to be fixed.  I want everything to be made normal again.  And I always feel guilty for feeling this way.  I feel so stupid.  I hear a voice in my head telling me to suck it up and take the consequences.

“Do you really think God will just make it ok after what you did?”

“It doesn’t work that way.  He can’t.”

But in Psalm 51 David cries out just like me.  He cries for healing the rift.  He cries out for God to BLOT out what he did.  To completely scratch it off.  To restore everything as if it never happened.  Really, think about the word “blot”.  Imagine God writing down what you did wrong and then pouring ink over it so you can never read it again.  EVER.  “Whiter than snow” means to be made as pure as possible.  “Restore the joy” means to make me happy again in God.  God bringing His presence, the Joy from knowing Him, the peace, all this stuff that WE SO TOTALLY DON’T DESERVE.  It is so human to cry out for this.  David, me and you.

AND THE BEST PART IS THAT GOD ACTUALLY DOES IT!

You have got to be kidding me.  Something I have learned this year:  if it is too good to be true, that is usually where God is waiting.

Pride works in two different ways.

1. One way pride works is for us to think we are better than people.  (ex:  judging others)
2. Another way pride works is that we won’t “lower” ourselves to do certain things because of the way we think about ourselves.  (ex:  asking for help when we need it)

A good example of this is when Peter won’t let Jesus wash his feet in John 13.  He tells Jesus that he will never allow him to wash his feet.  Peter does not think he is better than Jesus, not by any means.  Rather, he thinks he is not worthy to have Jesus wash his feet… and then refuses to let Jesus recognize his unworthiness.   This is where pride is hidden.  We won’t allow ourselves to be recognized as unworthy. 

Jesus’ reply to him is incredible and has to be a rock for each one of us:

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

Jesus is not giving Peter an emotional ultimatium.  He is helping to bring Peter into reality.  It is as if he is saying to Peter, “You are right, you are not worthy to have me wash your feet.  But I want and choose to do it because of my love for you.  Unless you let me do this for you, you will never be made clean.”

Notice how Jesus did not push the basin of water to Peter and politely allow him to wash his own feet (that would have been the proper thing to do, but we know Jesus doesn’t pay attention to those things).  Jesus confronts Peter because there is no other way.  This is love standing in truth.

Paul writes about this concept in Galations:

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!  Galations 2:21

This is reality:  If righteousness could be gained through us washing our own feet than Jesus died for nothing. 

Let us then not throw out God’s gift of grace.  We should lay down all of our pride, recognize that we are not above the charity of God, and allow Jesus to love us this way by washing us, even though we don’t deserve any of it.  This is way God prefers it.