Verse for the Day – Psalm 51:7

When I woke up and looked out the window, I immediately thought of Psalm 51:7 which says:

Though we may be tired of all the snow this winter, it is breathtakingly beautiful to me. When it first falls, it’s so clean and white, and we can understand what this verse is telling us. When Jesus washes away our sins, we are white as that snow. As the LORD also says in Isaiah 1:18, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Isn’t that a beautiful picture?Psalm 51 was written by David after he had committed adultery and murder. It is a “penitential” psalm, a prayer of repentance. Hyssop was the small bushy plant used by the Israelites that first Passover when they brushed the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, so that the LORD would pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to enter their houses and strike them with the death of their firstborn as happened to the Egyptians (Exodus 12).David is saying, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” I love David’s confident declaration and belief that if God would purge and wash him, he would be clean. He doesn’t say, “Purge me and I might be clean” or “Purge me, and I’ll try to live life better.” He says, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.” It’s a fact. True repentance leads to forgiveness of sin by the One able to give it.Jesus is the One who can do that. He is the sacrificial Lamb whose blood was shed and used to purge us and cleanse us and wash us and make us whiter than snow! White as snow! Clean and beautiful and able to walk then forward in the forgiveness Jesus has given us. Not by the works we have done, but by the blood of the Lamb, given for us. Praise the Lord!

PRAYER: Dear heavenly Father, help us to understand and to know, like David, that we have been washed in the blood of the Lamb and that through Jesus, we are clean. Let us today remember the great cost by which you gave your Son and by which He paid for our sins, and let us walk in the freedom from sin that He has provided. Thank you for full and complete redemption in Jesus’ Name. Amen.