Psalm 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.
The Answer to Your Problems
I have to be honest and tell you that I have an ambivalent relationship with the Bible character, David. Sometimes I love him, and sometimes I am just repulsed by him. Psalm 51 is the very best of David in response to the very worst of David because it is a psalm in which he is asking for God’s forgiveness after murdering Uriah and stealing Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.
The Psalm begins by saying, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” David is not only asking for mercy, he is asking for the kind of mercy only God can give.
That is important. If you were in Uriah’s family, how would you have responded to David’s sin? Well, I would have wanted to exact sweet revenge. What would you have done had you been Joab, David’s general? Joab facilitated this sin, and perhaps he did so knowing that if he did not, he would be the one to die and not Uriah.
How did God respond to David’s sin? He responded by sending the prophet Nathan to tell David that he had sinned against God. Amazingly, David was offended by sin, the sin of other people. That is the way I am, as well. I can be angry at the sin of others and blind to my own sin. When David was confronted with the personal nature of his own sin, he responded in a way that is given voice in Psalm 51.
The answer to your problems will be no greater than the God you allow to define them. Let me be more specific. The mercy for your sins will be no greater than the God you allow to define them. If I commit sin and think that it is not a big deal, then there is no mercy for that. If I commit sin and think it is okay because everyone else is doing it, then there is no mercy for that.
David did something quite different. He said, “I acknowledge my transgressions.” Verse 4 says, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” Had he not sinned against Bathsheba, Uriah, and others? Yes, but David realized that ultimately his sin was against God, and we cannot know God’s mercy until we accept His authority.
In other words, David’s mercy was the kind of mercy you receive when you allow God, not yourself or someone else, to define your sin.
Sin should be defined by the holiness of God, not man’s thinking, and when it is, mercy can be according to the resources of God. They go together. You receive the one because of the other.
Today, I don’t know your problem. Maybe there is some sin that is a specific problem. The mercy for your sin and the answer for your problem will be no greater than the God you allow to define them. So, yield your problems, sin, and shortcomings to God today, and know that God has mercy that no one else can give when we acknowledge God as the standard.