A Clean Heart
A Clean Heart
“Create in me a pure (clean) heart, O God, and renew a stedfast spirit within me” Psalms 51:10
The subject of the heart is overly under-rehearsed today, and everything deals with the heart. Solomon saw the essence of the role our heart plays and he warned believers who desire to walk the path of life to the end to ensure they commit themselves to one endeavor- guard their heart!
The matter of the heart is grave, and it thus requires utmost attention if we will serve Jesus, it is through our heart we conceive sin and if we don’t have the right heart it gets difficult to serve the Lord, for they who will serve Him will do so in truth and in spirit. The truth is the function of the heart, yet, if the heart is not serving in truth, how then can we move to the spirit? It means serving God would practically be impossible without the right heart. David nurtured sin first in His heart, and executed what became the greatest mistake of his living, was it not for God’s covenant of mercy with Him, the sin could have been his bane. The Devil brought similar temptation to Jesus’ heart, but our Lord is One of a Pure and Perfect Heart.
We have a personal responsibility to trust God daily for a pure heart, which can bear no sin. A pure heart is a heart that is consistently habitable to the Lord; a pure heart bears no grudge towards another; a pure heart is attained through committed and conscious holy living and a genuine prayer life and such heart is kept in the same fashion; we cannot even pray right without the right heart, the bearer of a clean heart is always aware of his greatest desire in keeping Jesus in his heart and thus strives to keep the heart clean of the minutest ill.
We cannot have a clean heart by ascetic commitment; rather, we must lean on the everlasting Arm of Grace. If we will have a closer and deeper walk with Jesus, we need a clean heart; if we will birth a revival like the Apostles, we must bear a clean heart; if we will live a sinless life, we must lead a clean life; if we ever desire to pray the right prayers and intercede the cause of heaven, we must have a clean heart. This subject is so grave that one of the first key things Jesus said in His maiden sermon was blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God!
O pray the Lord, that he teach you how to live and maintain a clean heart void of the slightest ill and sin!
One thing I of the Lord desire,
For all my path hath miry been,
Be it by water or by fire,
O make me clean, O make me clean.
Refrain
Wash me, Thou, without, within,
Or purge with fire, if that must be,
Anyhow, if only sin
Die out in me, die out, die out in me.
If clearer vision Thou impart,
Grateful and glad my soul shall be;
But yet to have a purer heart
Is more to me, is more to me.
Refrain
Yea, only as this heart is clean
May larger vision yet be mine,
For mirrored in its depths are seen
The things divine, the things divine.
Refrain
I watch to shun the miry way,
And stanch the springs of guilty thought,
But, watch and struggle as I may,
Pure I am not, pure I am not.
Refrain
