A Pure Heart

Chuckle: A pastor asked some young children where they wanted to go when they die. "To heaven," they all piped up. "And what do you have to do to get there," asked the pastor. "Be dead!" shouted one little boy.

Quote for today: "Christ can give us the courage to pick up the broken pieces of life, to put them back together, and start over again." --William Ward

"Create in me a clean (pure) heart, O God. Renew a right (steadfast) spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10 NLT).

Psalm 51 was written by King David to express his great remorse and repentance for the terrible sins he had committed. He knew his actions had brought great pain to many people. He had allowed his natural inclination toward sin to rule his life when he took another man's wife and had her husband murdered.

He came before God with deep sorrow asking that he be given a new and cleansed heart, and for God to restore once again the joy of His salvation (vs. 12). We may never commit the terrible sins that David did, but each of us sins and stands with a heart in need of God's forgiveness and cleansing.

When the word "heart" is used in Scripture, it usually does not mean the organ in our chests that pumps our blood. No, it means the seat of our emotions, passions, appetites, intellect, morals, will, thoughts, spirit -- the center and totality of our being -- our very nature. Notice that David asks God to "create" a pure heart in him, which implies a new replacement heart, not just the patching up of an old defective one -- making everything about him new and pure. Forgiving, renewing, and reforming the human heart/personality is one of God's greatest creative miracles.

David's great concern is to get his corrupt nature changed by a newly created heart with new thoughts, desires, motives and purpose. He knew he could not change his heart in his own strength and therefore pleads with God, the only One who can create, to create in him a clean/pure heart. The Hebrew word for "create" is the same word used to describe God's creation in Genesis 1:1. Speaking of God's creation, I'm reminded of 2 Corinthians 5:17: ". . . if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; The old is gone, the new has come!"

When David asked God to renew a steadfast and right spirit within him, he was saying, "Lord, fix me for the future so that I will never depart from You and sin against You like this again." Each of us would do well to pray this same prayer. Because he repented, God mercifully forgave David and if we repent He will forgive us as well. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NIV).

Love, Jerry & Dotse