A Clean Heart and A Right Spirit

A Clean Heart and A Right Spirit

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10

As a regenerated person, David knew the difference between where he was spiritually and where he wanted to be. He did not have a clean heart but he wanted one. He did not have a right spirit and he wanted that as well. What is interesting for us to note is that David does not look to himself to resolve the problem. Here is a fundamental defect in much of modern theology and its’ practical application. Because it exalts the will of man, and touts his own ability to pull himself up spiritually, it points people to themselves to resolve their own issues by ‘preaching’ to themselves or ‘arguing’ their way into ‘right thinking.’ David understands that God Alone can ‘create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.’ This is something which only the Spirit of God can do by taking the things of Christ and showing them to us. David appeals to God to do a work in his heart and spirit that he knows he cannot do himself. Here is where we need to land when we find ourselves without ‘a clean heart’ and ‘a right spirit.’ We appeal to God to do in our heart and spirit what we cannot do ourselves. We look to Christ and His sanctifying Spirit to bring us back to the place in our spiritual experience to where we possess ‘a clean heart,’ and ‘a right spirit.’

Our Good and Gracious God,
we rejoice that You ever point us to Christ.
We praise You that because of Him and by the power of His Spirit,
we can have clean heart.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning