Five Habits of a Cleaned-Up Sinner – Habit #5: Clean Up!

“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” Psalm 51:7

Thank goodness, it’s Friday! With the busyness of the week nearly over, there’s nothing like the anticipation of a little R & R on the weekend to lift our spirits. Let’s hear it for sitting back and soaking up some much deserved rest and relaxation!

While we all crave physical R & R, spiritual R & R is even more vital. There is a special rest for our souls when we’ve let God invade our innermost being and do his work of restoration and refinishing. We need His R & R because sin layers us with the residual grime of defeat, guilt, and discouragement.

No one felt the need more deeply than King David after he sinned with Bathsheba. After managing a massive cover-up plot that left him guilty of lying and murder, he pleads in Psalm 51 for the R & R that only God could bring to his wayward life. In his prayer, David leads us through five habits of a cleansed life. As we have seen in the last four days of this series, David is willing to ’fess up to his sin, look up to God instead of horizontally comparing himself to others, own up to his own sinfulness, and to completely open up to God by not hiding behind the fig leaves of rationalization and excuses. Which leads us to habit five: clean up!

This is the habit of praying to God for the mercy that only He can provide to forgive and restore us by declaring us fully and finally clean!  

In Psalm 51:7, David pleads, “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” His desire to be cleansed with hyssop was not lost on David’s Jewish readers. By Jewish law, people who were infected with the deadly and highly contagious disease of leprosy were banished from their families and the community and declared unclean. If anyone approached them, they had to yell out: “Unclean! Unclean!” When a leper was healed, he was brought to the priest who would dip a hyssop branch in the blood of a sacrificial lamb. After sprinkling the healed leper with the blood of the lamb, the priest would then declare him clean by shouting, “Clean! You are clean!” Think of the rejoicing that filled the temple when the declaration was made. I’d like to think that all the family and friends broke out in celebratory applause!

David realizes that his sin has made him a spiritual leper—banished from God’s presence and unclean. We too are spiritual lepers when we harbor unresolved sin in our lives. But like David, cleansing is ours when we come to the God of mercy to be sprinkled with the shed blood of Jesus and declared clean! And count on it, there is thunderous applause in heaven when cleansing takes place. As Jesus said, “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10).

The word cleanse literally means to “un-sin” us. What a great way to think of God’s mercy! When you are willing to ’fess up, look up, own up, and open up as you come to Him to clean up your life, He will “un-sin” you!

Welcome to God’s cleansing work. There is nothing better than hearing the declaration, “You are clean!” It’s R & R at its best! 

YOUR JOURNEY…

• Be honest: Is there any sin in your life you have permitted to go uncleansed? Why?
• Read through Psalm 51. As you read it, put that sin in the text and pray the psalm back to God as though you were writing it yourself.
• Review the five habits and plan today to activate them in your heart every time sin brings its leprous presence into your life.
• Memorize the prayer in Psalm 51:7.

Check out this week's Strength for the Journey message!