HE DELIGHTED IN ME
Psalm 18:1-30
“The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the Lord; I am not guilty of turning from my God. All his laws are before me; I have not turned away from his decrees. I have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin.”
I don’t know about you, but I have problems saying what David said above. I have been brought up conscious of my sinful nature, conscious that I have nothing to boast about, conscious that my righteousness is like “filthy rags”.
Yet here is David, led by the Spirit of God, writing as if he is this pure and righteous person, keeping God’s laws perfectly, blameless and sinless.
We know that this was not the case. His sin with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband just to cover up his predatory actions tipped him into the category of evil in my eyes.
What David was inspired to say here challenges my notion of what it means to be forgiven, what it means to be credited with righteousness of Christ, what it means to be a child of God by the grace of the sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour.
God would never delight in evil David. But when David was forgiven, credited righteous by the future sacrifice of Jesus (after all, God is not bound by time), David became indeed clean and righteous, because of the righteousness of Christ. And so his feeble attempts at righteous behaviour now elicit God’s loving response.
It boggles the mind, but God truly loves me because I am righteous with the righteousness of my Lord and Saviour, and he responds to me as I obey him, follow him and stay close to him.
“You, Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.”