Psalm 51:12

Psalm 51:12

A willing spirit!

This is quite a verse! For a start, we have an Old Testament, Covenant king talking about the joy of salvation. It was a joy that David had felt before in his life because he asks the Lord to restore it. We use the reality of salvation to describe deliverance from our sins, from ourselves, from Satan, from judgement and from death. That is the gospel and the salvation we enjoy comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. How did a man like David view salvation 1,000 years before Messiah came? I suspect that he wanted salvation from the consequences of his sins too! The rest of the verse suggests that he wanted to be saved from himself and we already know that he longed to live again without the heavy hand of God’s discipline and judgement. Like David, when we know that we are free of these things, then we know we are saved and in that, there is great joy.

There is another twist to this verse. The wicked do not have much choice when it comes to sin, for they do not know God. They do not follow His commands and Laws. They do not have any means within them to help them make choices between good and evil. David had that choice. So do you and I. Sin can only entrap us if we choose to let it. David’s encounter with Bathsheba was by choice. He chose to watch her bathing. He chose to enquire about her and to “ask her over.” He chose to sleep with her and then he chose to remove her husband, Uriah, from the picture. Let us be careful that the “sin that so easily entangles us” is not of our choosing! Instead, we need to ask the Lord to give us a willing spirit. Willing to obey Him and to say, “No” to the devil’s lures. If we choose this pathway, He will sustain us. 

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