“Create in me a clean heart, O God—and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your Presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Your Salvation and uphold me with Your free Spirit. Then, will I teach transgressors Your ways—and sinners shall be converted unto You.”
Psalm 51:10-13
His Salvation is always for our service to Him and others, not our self-satisfaction.
When Jesus gave His marching orders to His disciples (and us) prior to His Ascension into Heaven (Mt. 28:18-20), He assumed they’d be going. The first word used in v.19 is “Go,” but the meaning is literally “As you are going.”
As we read His Co-Mission, we also see how He gave them (and us) both a Message and a Method: The Message of Redemption through His Blood and the Method of going where people are and leading them to become His disciples as well.
Although David lived long before Christ’s Missions’ Mandate, he still knew the God of Abraham had not chosen him to sit around doing nothing all day long. And, although he’d sinned grievously against his Lord, he also knew that his Master was not through with him yet.
That’s why he prayed today’s Manna.
He desperately needed God’s “creating in him a clean heart and renewing a right spirit with him.” He also longed for the Lord’s assurance that He wouldn’t “cast him away from His Presence or remove His Holy Spirit from him.” And, how he craved a “restoration of God’s Joy in his life and feeling anew His Grip of Grace on him.”
But, all of that was for his personal restoration and revival.
Beyond that, he knew all of this would be for a purpose: So he could “teach transgressors God’s ways and, in the process, sinners would be converted unto Him.” Hallelujah!!
Dear Pilgrim, the Lord God created us in our mother’s womb for a purpose—and it’s a wonderful Purpose indeed (Jer. 29:11)! And, it’s only through the new birth and our surrendering to His call that we discover what it is.
Again, God has not called us to sit; He has called us to serve.
He has not called us to self-satisfied complacency; He has called us to self-surrendered commitment.
He has not called us to sit idly by, waiting on the Glory Train to Heaven; he has called us to woo and warn those who are who are “partying hardy on the world’s barge as they head downstream toward certain destruction” (Mt. 24:36-44).
Who do you know, Pilgrim, who’s lost and on his/her way to hell? Who do you know who’s “living in this world without God and without hope” (Eph. 2:12)? If you don’t tell them, who will? If you don’t intercede for them, who will? Today’s Manna is for each one of us who are “Soldiers of the Cross.” The hour is late. The needs are great—and “the laborers are few” (Mt. 9:37-38). Go into the fields and bring them in. They’ll rejoice. You’ll be blessed. And the Lord of the Harvest will be pleased. Amen and amen.
May 9, 2011
