The Role of Repentance in Worship

I don’t know about you, but when it has been a while since I have asked God to search my heart and to remove from it all that displeases Him, it can pretty much be guaranteed that by then, my joy in worship, prayer, giving and service of any kind will be diminished greatly or non-existent.  In fact, whenever I find myself feeling like an outsider during worship or prayer—or being bored, or even embarrassed—I have come to realize that this is a clear sign of my need to come to God in repentance.

Repentance is not for God’s sake…it is not that He takes delight in watching us squirm; it is for our own sakes.  Sin becomes like a thick layer of calloused skin over our hearts that obstructs our spiritual sensitivity…It reduces our pleasure in being in God’s presence; it lessens our ability to feel it when we are getting even deeper into sin;  it keeps us from unimpeded closeness to the rest of God’s family; and worst of all, it deafens the ears of our hearts to the sound of God’s voice.

Has it been some time since you’ve heard God speaking to you?  Honestly, I am in this position right now.  I came to God this morning and admitted to Him that I’ve been bored and distant…that I haven’t heard Him speak and I’ve lost my desire to speak to Him…  He led me to read Psalm 51, a poem written by King David following a time of sin (possibly after his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband).

God showed me that there are really three “if, then” statements in this psalm…You remember from geometry or from logic classes that an if then statement is one in which IF a certain condition is true, THEN it follows that something else is true or can then occur.  Here in this Psalm, the statements are all involving confession, repentance and restoration and our avenues of worshipping God.

The first one states that if God will restore to us our joy and willingness to be in His presence, THEN we can teach others about God and then people’s heart will be turned toward God as well.

Then next statement is that IF God delivers us from our state of inherent guilt before Him, (the guilt that David states is with us from conception ((see v. 5)) ), THEN we can sing and offer our praise before God.  In other words, our ability to worship will be restored.

And finally, David states that God takes no pleasure in the act of our making sacrifices to Him…Our gifts do nothing to bring Him satisfaction or pleasure UNLESS they come from a broken contrition that recognizes our need for repentance before God…IF we honestly, sincerely confess our sins and have sorrow over them, THEN will God take pleasure in our offerings and gifts to Him.

David asks to be purified with hyssop.  Hyssop branches were the means of splashing the blood on the lintels during Passover.  This means that David was recognizing the need to be covered by blood which would impute his sinlessness before the eyes of God.  This was a wise recognition of the need for a savior and His blood to cover us and that this is the only way for us to be really clean in God’s eyes.  It was an understanding of the need for God’s grace and mercy to accept the blood of another on our behalf.

I thank God for the understanding He shared with me about this Psalm this morning… and now that I recognize my need, I am going to spend time before Him asking Him to “Search my heart, O God and see if there is any wicked way in me.” and then I will ask Him to splash the blood of Christ on the doorposts of my heart so that I may be counted to be sinless in His sight.