"The Approach" -2

"Have mercy upon me, O God, according in Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." (Psalms 51:1) You do believe that Jonah really did get swallowed by a giant fish, right? Jesus would not have used it an illustration if He had not made that fish to swallow him up. As I was saying, God's mercy is always more than we need to be forgiven, and God wants to forgive us, He really does; we just need to come clean before Him, not try and clean up before we come to Him, because He wants us to come just as we are, broken and ashamed. Jonah did not say, "If I get out of this fish I am going to get right with God", he got right with God right where he was, and then God delivered him from the fish! I think I understand what it feels like to be broken, but do I know what deliverance feels like? Did Jonah? You see, that is what I am trying to say; God will use our faults for His perfect will; God can take something that is totally wrong, and He can make it work for that which is right. I do not pretend to understand all that God does and why He allows some things to happen, because we simply cannot even begin to see what God can see; but when David is asking for God to "blot out" his transgressions, it is more than just a simple request to be forgiven, it is asking that God wipe them away, as if they never happened. Have you ever felt that ashamed before, where you wish that something you did could be removed? And yet, we all know that is not possible, except in the movies. David is primarily concerned about God blotting out his transgressions from His view of him, as if he was asking God to exterminate the very act from the record book. Our number one objective is to get right with God; and God's number one desire is that we ask Him to make us right; that we would sincerely come to Him needing to be made right, and believing that He wants to do that in us. That is really key, yet it is what we sometimes lack the most, the belief that God wants to do something special within us, beyond just forgiving us; God wants to do a work in us that is beyond our wildest dreams, if we would just surrender. Approach does not only mean to draw closer or to get near, it also means a way of dealing with something: "Our ways are not God's ways"; and remember, this is about Spiritual Cleansing, which does not appear in the flesh, nor is it even concerning the flesh; it is about our spirit being one with God's Spirit... "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Romans 8:5-6)