Punta Gorda Seventh-day Adventist Church

Scripture: (Psa 25:2, 7 NKJV)  O my God, I trust in You; Let me not be ashamed; Let not my enemies triumph over me. . .  7Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; According to Your mercy remember me, For Your goodness' sake, O LORD.

 

Observation: A psalm of David in which he expresses his confidence in God and his plea for deliverance from sin and for forgiveness if he sins.

 

Application: In verse seven David pleads with God to not remember the sins of his youth.  I guess I find it encouraging to know that David was not the only one who faced challenges, stumbled, and fell dujring his youth and pleads for forgiveness.  Sometimes those are sins or ignorance, at other times sins of commission, and may times sins of omission.  Not having been brought up in a Seventh-day Adventist family I can look back at my youth and see a life tainted with sins of ignorance – drinking and smoking, because that’s what everybody else did.  Or not always applying myself to my studies and causing my parents great aggravation, sadness, and pain.  Or other things which were acts of disobedience or rebelliousness.   With David I can I can cry out, “God, do not remember the sins of my youth.”  And I know that God’s love and mercy covers those times.

What bothers me, though, is not the sins of my youth but the sins of my adult age, after I came to know him, yesterday’s or even today’s sins.  I can’t claim ignorance anymore.  I can’t claim inexperience, lack of maturity, or bad luck either.  My sin today is a sin of outright rebelliousness, something for which I have no excuse.  And so with David I also cry out - “My God, I trust in You; let me not be ashamed; let not my enemies triumph over me.”  I don’t want to bring shame on my God or His cause, nor do I want to bring shame to my wife and family, so I get up every morning to spend time with Him, to study His Word, to talk to Him and to listen from Him, so that I may be changed from my selfish life of sin to His selfless life of love.  If I fall and my enemies rejoice it’s sad enough, but when I sin and my enemy laughs at God, it is a true shame.

 

A Prayer You May Say: My God, I trust in You!  Help me to live in such a way that I Will not bring shame on You or my family.  Help me this day to live in such a way that there will be no cause for me to be embarrassed for my actions or my words, and that my family may never be harmed by them.