When the Holy Spirit reveals to you that you have sinned, what is your reaction? Perhaps you ignore it. Perhaps you rationalize about it. Perhaps you give a halfhearted apology to God. The significance of how we respond to the conviction of having sinned will make a different for how you relate to God in the future.
King David committed murder and adultery for the sake of having a woman that he lusted after. He thought he got away with it. He got the woman he wanted to be his wife. She became pregnant as a result of the illicit affair. He consoled himself that what he did was his royal prerogative.
Then the prophet Nathan came along to confront David. He brought everything out in the open that David did wrong like that of a Searchlight shining on his soul. At that point the king had one of two choices. He could have brushed aside what the prophet said and continue living as he had been. Or he could offer true repentance to God and accept the responsibility for his sin.
David wrote Psalm fifty-one as a prayer begging God’s forgiveness. He asked God not to discard him. This is a good example of how to pray to God if we are truly sincere for the sins that we have committed. Notice some of the things that David said. “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin…. created in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me…… restore to me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit….. the sacrifices of God or a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”
It is superbly important that when we confess our sins to God, we are truly and thoroughly repentant. This Psalm is a prime example of the sinning believer who seeks to come back to full fellowship with God. Such confession is not an attack on one’s self-esteem. It is a frank admission for the frailty of human flesh.
Christian Writer 