Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am godly;
save your servant, who trusts in you —
you are my God.
Psalms 86:1-2
you are my God.
Psalms 86:1-2
What a thing for David to offer in prayer! 'I am godly (faithful, pious)'. And that little 'for' right before it means that David is offering this claim as a reason why God should answer his prayer and preserve his life.
Now, it must have been okay for David to have written that. It made it into Scripture. And that leads to the question, 'Is it okay for us to pray that way, to appeal to God because we are godly?' It must be. If it weren't, then we wouldn't have it in one of the psalms for us to imitate. But could we actually say such a thing? We are such sinners. But, then again, so was David - and yet, he prayed this.
It seems that God really means it when he says, 'I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.' (Isaiah 43.25) Our Father does not remember our sins. In fact, He obliterates them (blots them out). As soon as we repent of some sin that the Spirit points out, the Father forgets all about it. It is completely gone. That's why David prayed in the way that he did. He believed the part of the Gospel that promises complete forgiveness. And we are to do the same. We are to believe that our sins have likewise been forgiven and forgotten, and then to pray, 'Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me … for I am godly'.