Dealing With the Yeahbuts

 

Good day! I’m Duane Matz and this is Today’s Living Word

 

Ps 141:4 Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, To practice wicked works With men who work iniquity; And do not let me eat of their delicacies.

 5 Let the righteous strike me; It shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; It shall be as excellent oil; Let my head not refuse it. For still my prayer is against the deeds of the wicked.

 

David is asking the Lord   to help him steer clear of anything that displeases God, And he asks that God would turn him away from the habitual sinful and  yet alluring practices of the world! 

 

As I read this prayer of David’s, I can’t help but wonder if it was answered on the day that God sent the prophet Nathan to David and he called out David’s sin with Bathsheba.

 

Verse 5 is a plea to send a righteous person (Nathan) to strike David with the Law of God. It would be a kindness to point  out Davids sin, and a rebuke from a righteous man would be like an anointing of fresh oil from head to foot.

And when the rebuke comes,  David asks that he not dodge it, but meekly receive it and confess it for what it is….a sin against God! And funny thing that’s just what happened when the prophet Nathan confronted David over his sins with Bathsheba!

 

Nathan summed it up when he told David, “You are the man!” And David received the rebuke when he replied to Nathan, “”I have sinned against the Lord.”

 

A terrible thing you  did with Bathsheba David, but 1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

This was true for David and it’s true  for  you and I as well!

 

Pray this prayer of David in Ps 141:4,5, Pray that you too would be open to rebuke and correction. And stay away from the “yeahbuts.”

 

 

You know the yeahbuts, Yeah but what about this and yeah what about that, as you seek to justify your sin? You find yourself pouring over the concordance in your Bible, looking for loopholes, to justify your divorce, or your abortion, or your gossiping, , or  your sexuality or any other sin that you have swept under the carpet.

 

Instead of looking for loopholes, look at the nail holes, the sins that put Jesus on the cross. Confess them, receive His forgiveness, then go and sin no more

 

I’m Duane Matz and that’s today’s Living Word.