How humble Psalm 51

1. we are a broken people.

To understand our brokenness is true formation.

but we only focus on our sins, not on our sinfullness

thank about that

when we focus on our sins we focus on our own actions, our work, ourself, what we do.

And what we think of forgiveness from God is limited to our sin, our wrong action today, our evil decision we made 2 weeks ago, or our string of sins running through our life the past 2 years. But it is still focused on that sin and what God can forgive for us.

But, when we focus on our sinfulness we get a sense that we are fallen no matter what we do, what our actions are, what we do in life… we are a sinful people, I am a sinner.

And what we think of God is not limited to forgiveness of a sin or sins or even a life of sins. God’s forgiveness is open to us in total. He is forgiving my sinfulness not just my sin, he is reconciling ourselves to him, not just pardoning us for a thing we did.

See church our heart is bent toward sin, so sin is a by product of what the problem is. But looking at our life as a sinful life looks at the heart of the problem.

2. What is your yearning or desire focused on? is it fulfilled in Jesus and so it is done. No more desire or yearning.

Or do you have a knowledge and yearning that is still seeking more of God in a fallen world?

Whats the difference?

Yearning for God does not stop. If you say my yearning is over because it is fulfilled in Christ, you stop being fulfilled with Jesus. I got enough of jesus to last me a life time, I do not need more.

But if you are actively yearning for Christ then you are never satisfied.

think about it, do you still yearn for completion of God in this world?

so put it together, how you see yours and how you yearn for God will make you spiritually formed.

This psalm is the perfect idea of sinfulness and

This is called the greatest of the penitential psalms.

Penitential means being in a state of penitence, or in a state of sorrow for sins or faults

This is known as the Psalm of Psalms because of the way it is written, the subject of guilt, remorse and forgiveness.

It is a psalm of David and it comes at the time after Nathan confronted him about his sin with Bathsheba. is where this is located.

So the story goes…

how bout this story...

You were born in sin, you live in sin, you will die in sin.

What would you say? what would you pray for? what would you strive for? what would be on your mind and heart? Would it be something like this Psalm?

Reading a book on Spiritual formation as if the church mattered and how spiritual formation should be run in the church and how it should be the life blood of the church.