When I was a kid, I remember going to Houston Oiler games. To get the crowd excited they would play the famous song that said, “‘Cause we’re the Houston Oilers. Houston Oilers. Houston Oilers number one!” That song was played all the time around here. I’ve been to other professional teams of various sports and the crowd will break out singing songs of victory for the team. If you support a favorite college in football, I bet you can name their fight song. Even in church we sing songs of victory over the enemy in our battle with him, but have you ever heard of or sang a song of failure? Could you imagine writing a song that exposed your greatest failure in life so that everyone could hear about it?
In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan walked into the king’s palace and told the king a story about two men. One was rich and the other was poor. The rich man had many sheep in his flock and the poor man just one, which he treated as his own child. A guest showed up at the rich man’s home and instead of killing one of his own sheep, he took the one from the poor man, slaughtered it and served it. David got angry and said that the rich man needed to be put to death. The prophet told him, “You are that man!” He exposed David’s hidden sin of murder and adultery. Instead of denying it or explaining it, he humbled himself. He then wrote Psalm 51, a beautiful song about his failure and need for repentance. Instead of keeping his sin from everyone but God, he exposed it to everyone.
Verse 1 says, “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins” (NLT). It goes on and in verse 10 it says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.” Every one of us fail and sin at times, but do we take the time to expose those failures and confess them to God and others? James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins one to another, not just to God. Why? So we can find healing, restoration, and warn others of where temptations lay. Our song of failure can keep other people from wandering down the same path and keep them from making the same mistake. The enemy wants us to be so embarrassed about our failures that we keep quiet. God’s remedy is for us to sing it from the rooftops to help others on their way not to make the same mistakes. Confess your sins to each other and to God, then ask for a clean heart and a right spirit.
Photo by Riley Bartel on Unsplash
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 