Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. – Psalm 51:10
American gospel singers and songwriters Dony and Reba Rambo-McGuire were invited to vacation with friends on a houseboat on Center Hill Lake near Nashville, Tennessee. They had prayed that the Lord would “do something special,” and several songs were completed by the end of that week. One particular song was created when Dony returned from an early morning of fishing with a God-inspired tune. As he played the small keyboard, Reba wrote similarly inspired lyrics. While many compositions change as the songwriters repeat them, this “little lake song” never did. This song, “A Perfect Heart,” begins, “Morning sun light of creation / Grassy fields of velvet floor / Silver clouds a shimmering curtain / He’s designed a perfect world.” The chorus closes, acknowledging the miraculous creative nature of the Lord, singing, “He can make a perfect heart.”
David acknowledged before the Lord that his heart was clogged with sin. “I need a new heart,” he wrote. Pastor and teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee wrote, “The word create means ‘out of nothing.’ In other words, there was nothing in David’s heart that God could use. He was not asking for renovation or reformation. He was asking for something new.” This takes nothing less than a miracle—it is something only God can do.
The Hebrew word for clean is tahor, and it means pure, clear, purified, genuine, and unalloyed. A clean heart has no contaminants and no pollution. Theologian W.E. Vine said, “God demands that His people have spiritual and moral purity, unsullied by sin.” Old Testament purification rites often utilized water. The sanctified believer is washed by the water of the Word of God (Ephesians 5:26). David understood the need for a divine work of God in his life. God is still the Creator who can cleanse the impure heart and restore a right spirit within you. Humbly come to Him and confess your sins, for He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you (1 John 1:9). Pray for the nation’s politicians to desire clean hearts so they might be led to the Savior.
Today’s Verse: Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: Ephesians 2:1-10
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
