A BROKEN OFFERING

“O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I will give it; You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—These, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:15-17).

What can I do to find forgiveness?  Sometimes I feel like David when he sinned with Bathsheba.  I can’t run away from my sin. It’s always there, staring me in the face and bringing condemnation and pain. What can I do to be right with God again? 

“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burned offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6:6,7)

In the Old Testament, the remedy was plain. I would bring a whole lamb for a burned offering and it would die in my place.  I couldn’t merely bring a part of the lamb, keeping back some of it for me and my family. I had to bring it all—100%--because sin’s atonement requires a complete offering—when I come to Jesus with all my heart, giving Him Lordship over all my life. His saving blood washes over me when I come with a whole offering.

 And yet, I am not whole. My life is broken because sin shatters my communion with Jesus and leaves me in a million pieces.  I don’t have everything together. I’m not coming to Him in strength but in poverty, admitting that I’m empty and He is my fullness. I am weakness but He is my strength. I am dying but He is my life.

Sometimes we think we can’t come to God UNTIL we’ve made everything right. Our faith is derailed, our lives are bankrupt, but somehow we think we can get everything back in place. But we’ll never get there until we come first to Jesus--tattered and broken, just as we are.  

“Do not listen to the enemy’s suggestion to stay away from Christ until you have made yourself better, until you are good enough to come back to God. If you wait until then, you will never come. When Satan points to your filthy garments, repeat the promise of Jesus, “Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out.” John 6:37. Tell the enemy that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. Make the prayer of David your own, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7.

 Arise and go to your Father. He will meet you a great way off. If you take even one step toward Him in repentance, He will hasten to enfold you in His arms of infinite love. His ear is open to the cry of the contrite soul. The very first reaching out of the heart after God is known to Him. Never a prayer is offered, however faltering, never a tear is shed, however secret, never a sincere desire after God is cherished, however feeble, but the Spirit of God goes forth to meet it. Even before the prayer is uttered or the yearning of the heart made known, grace from Christ goes forth to meet the grace that is working upon the human soul” (Christ’s Object Lessons, pg. 205,206).

God is good  and “ready to forgive and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon [Him]” (Psalm 86:5). God loves to take our broken offerings and make us whole again. Only His saving love can do that. Only His love can make us whole.