An Important Turnaround

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. —Psalm 51:10

Confession motivated by worldly grief depends on human effort for change. The attitude is, “I’ve got this! I’ll try harder and won’t mess up again.” There’s an element of self-sufficiency and pride. But a “sorry” motivated by godly grief runs to God and humbly relies on Him to take care of the problem. The attitude is that you can’t do this without God.

In Psalm 51, David cried out to God over his inability to deal with the problem of sin in his life. He recognized that he needed God to change his heart.

If you’re ditching the baggage of sin in your life on a regular basis, you will inevitably change through the redemptive and transformative power of God. That’s what repentance is all about. It’s a turnaround, a change in thinking, to stop doing things your way and doing them God’s way instead. And it starts with an admission that we’re thinking and acting the wrong way and that there are things in our lives that need to change.