Prayer

Do you remember what we call the songs that David wrote? Psalms.

Yes! He didn’t write all of the psalms in the Bible, but he wrote many of them! Our SuperVerse today from 1 Samuel 16:7 says:

“People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

David understood that when he wrote this. Read Psalm 51:10,12:

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and make me willing to obey You.

Have you ever felt guilty for doing something wrong? Yes.

We have all done things wrong. What does guilt feel like? Shame, embarrassment, fear, worry, etc.

God created us and loves us dearly. He wants to have a close relationship with us—but He is perfect, and He can’t even look at someone who has sinned. Jesus, God’s only Son, never sinned. When He was dying on the cross, He felt the guilt and took the punishment for everything that we have ever done wrong. He washed away our sins so we can have a wonderful relationship with our Father in heaven. So, when we ask God to forgive us and trust Jesus as our Savior, our hearts are washed clean from all that terrible guilt and shame. How does it feel to be forgiven? Happy and free.

As David said in that psalm, Restore to me the joy of Your salvation. We want to have God’s joy today!

Let’s pray: Dear Father in heaven, when we sin we feel very small in our own eyes. Yet we know we can come to You and ask for forgiveness just like David did when he sinned. We invite You to look at our hearts right now. Pause for children to pray silently. You can see that we have done some things that were wrong, we’ve said some things that were unkind, and we’ve thought some things that are not pleasing to You. Pause. We are very sorry, and we ask You to wash our hearts clean from all of our sins. Pause. Thank You that Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins. We are so happy that You have forgiven us and washed away our sins! Pause. We know that we can do great things in Your eyes and You don’t see us as small! Now please give us the power of Your Holy Spirit to obey You and follow Your ways. In Jesus’ name, Amen.