A clean heart create for me, God; renew within me a steadfast spirit. Do not drive me from before your face, nor take from me your holy spirit. Psalms 51:12-13 NABRE
This psalm is a plea to be purified and for a heart to be made clean. The psalm begins with the psalmist asking God to take away sin, he acknowledges he is a sinner, asking to be freed from sin by means of purification. The second part of the psalm focuses on grace, the psalmist asks God to renew and restore him, promising to testify God has done so, and to praise God by offering an acceptable sacrifice, one the comes from the heart. He closes the psalm with a prayer for Jerusalem, just as he prayed for himself at the beginning. This psalm is placed after the psalm in which David admitted his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and his crime of arranging the death of Uriah. Followers of Jesus can use this psalm to seek God’s forgiveness and pray for inner renewal from the Holy Spirit. In the quoted verse we see the psalmist going beyond a physical healing, he is begging God to renew his inner being by an act of creation, creating a clean heart. The heart leads us and if our heart is pure it will lead us to the presence of God. With a clean heart we can dwell in the presence of God and share in a life that possesses the Holy Spirit. We can see signs of the New Covenant that God will make with His people. (see Jeremiah 31:33) The psalmist always wants to be in the presence of God with the Holy Spirit.
This new heart can point us to the act of Jesus taking all sin with Him to the cross. Through death Jesus has made all hearts pure. The creation of a new heart means the old heart must die, the sinfulness that exists in us must be despised and a love of purity embraced.
Do you know your sin? Do you examine your heart and see where it wants to lead you?
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