As the “man after God’s own heart,” David is an easy choice when we’re looking for someone to emulate in our walk with God. But even a quick\u00a0reading\u00a0of the text on David’s life will show that he wasn’t exactly perfect. Rather, David was a man who made some terrible choices. However, oddly enough some of the strongest lessons about what it means to have the heart that God wants us to have come from the times when David gave in to sin.<\/p>\n
In 2 Samuel 11, we learn of David\u2019s series of sins with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. That sets up 2 Samuel 12, where Nathan the prophet comes to David to uncover the sins and give the message from God. In Psalm 51, we find David\u2019s prayer of repentance to God for those sins. In these two chapters we learn a number of great lessons about how to respond to sin. Let\u2019s take a look at three of those lessons. <\/span><\/p>\n David hated sin. <\/b>When Nathan presented David with the story of the rich man who stole the poor man\u2019s sheep, \u201cDavid\u2019s anger burned greatly against the man\u201d (2 Sam. 12:5). David hated the injustice and wanted to make it right. What followed is the most important lesson for us to learn in our attitude toward sin. See, as soon as David became so indignant, Nathan revealed to him that he was the man guilty of such a great crime. David didn\u2019t lie. David didn\u2019t make excuses. David didn\u2019t try to diminish his own sins by comparing them to someone else\u2019s. David immediately owned it, saying \u201cI have sinned against the Lord\u201d (2 Sam. 12:13). By the time he penned Psalm 51, we see that that hatred for his own sin remained, as he said it was \u201cever before him\u201d (51:3) and he begged to be delivered from his own \u201cbloodguiltiness\u201d (51:14).<\/span><\/p>\n We would do well to learn from his hatred for sin. It\u2019s so easy to spend our time talking about the sins of the people of the world and what we need to do to change them, but unless we truly hate our own sins, we\u2019re just being hypocritical. David\u2019s sharing of God\u2019s hatred for sin is surely one of the reasons why he was known as a man after God\u2019s own heart, and it should be our goal to fit that description as well.<\/span><\/p>\n David accepted God\u2019s forgiveness.<\/b> It\u2019s very easy for us to base our state of forgiveness on our own feelings, but that only leads to a misunderstanding of holiness and grace. On the one hand, you have those who decide that they can let themselves off the hook for the sins they\u2019ve committed, that their sins aren\u2019t a big deal. Of course, that\u2019s no way to look at the ugliness of sin. Only God can give forgiveness. On the other hand, though, you have those who beat themselves up over their sins, refusing to accept God\u2019s forgiveness. That doesn\u2019t make us more righteous – that just means we believe we\u2019re higher, more righteous judges than God. When He promises forgiveness, we have to believe Him that He\u2019s forgiven us and will remember it no more. When David said \u201cWash me, and I will be whiter than snow\u201d in Psalm 51:7, he acknowledged this great promise, that even after adultery and murder, God can cleanse every stain and restore us again. David allowed himself fellowship with God once again, not on his own merit, but on the belief that God’s grace was enough. And that’s the heart our Father wants us to have. Once we accept forgiveness on God\u2019s terms, we can stop trying to determine it for ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n