Have you ever wondered what’s the connection between “a broken and contrite heart” and “Zion”? It looks like if we have such a spirit and such a heart, we are qualified to pray such a prayer, and we desire what the Lord also desires – the good of Zion (Psa. 48:2)!
we need to have a thorough repentance and confession to receive a full forgiveness from God
We need to confess even the small things – everything that bothers our conscience when we fellowship with the Lord. Regularly, we need to have a private time with the Lord when we confess our sins in a fine and detailed way. Just us and the Lord, fellowshipping and praying over His Word…
our repentance and confession marries God’s forgiveness to produce something for God’s building
In a way, if in our Christian life we didn’t have a great failure – something that we do which makes the other saints shake their head when they think about it – we cannot say we have experienced a great repentance matched by God’s forgiveness… No, we don’t want to say, Let us do evil so that good may later come. We don’t want to tempt God nor do we desire to willingly fail, but we may fail and commit a great sin – we may have a great failure – and there will be a deep repentance that will follow.