Sin is rarely a one-shot deal. On Wall Street they have a saying about bad news being revealed by a corporation. It is call the Cockroach Theory…because “there is always more than one.” That means that when a company announces bad news…there is almost assuredly more bad news to follow!
We are probably involved with repeated sin. Maybe our drug addiction led us down the slippery slope. Maybe our rage ate away at us and led us into sin. Maybe it was our lust or our greed. We’ve tried to change, but we can’t make it work. We become discouraged and hopeless. We begin to think that maybe we are hopeless too. Worthless. And that attitude is not what we need to get beyond the guilt and stain of our sin.
Read King David’s prayer written down in Psalm 51. It points us in the right direction. We need not only forgiveness but also cleansing. We need new hearts.
Only God can give us new hearts—clean hearts—with new attitudes and new values. Through the power of His Holy Spirit, He wants to give us spiritual heart transplants so that His desires will flow through us, directing our emotions and actions. He wants His thoughts to fill our minds.
David also knew he needed a “right spirit.” He needed to have God touch his attitudes.
We need that touch too. Often our spirits are full of negativity, hate, selfishness, greed, and lust. We need God to give us spirits that are full of hope, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and self-control. We need attitudes that help us reach out to each other, help us think the best about each other, and help us trust that God will use our lives to accomplish His good purposes. We need “right spirits.”
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