40 Days of Prayer, Day 11
Day 11, Wednesday, August 31
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Psalm 51:10-11
Create in me a Clean Heart
One of my favorite writers is Charles Spurgeon. He has an incredible way of explaining the scriptures. Spurgeon spent several years writing a commentary for the Book of Psalms. It is an incredible, seven volume set. His comments on Psalm 51:10 are a terrific sample of the types of pictures he paints with words. Take a moment to read Spurgeon on Psalm 51:10…
“Create. What! Has sin so destroyed us that the Creator must be called in again? What ruin has evil worked among mankind! Create in me. I, in my outward fabric, still exist; but I am empty, void. Come, then, and let Your power be seen in a new creation within my old fallen self. You made us in the world at first; Lord, make a new person in me! A clean heart, in the seventh verse he asked to be clean; now he seeks a heart suitable to that cleanliness; but he does not say, "Make my old heart clean;" he is too experienced in the hopelessness of the old nature. He would have the old man buried as a dead thing, and a new creation brought in to fill its place. None but God can create either a new heart or a new earth. Salvation is a marvelous display of supreme power; the work in us as much as that for us is wholly of Omnipotence. The affections must be rectified first, or all our nature will go amiss. The heart is the rudder of the soul, and till the Lord take it in hand we steer in a false and foul way. O Lord, You who once made me, be pleased to make me anew, and in my most secret parts renew me. Renew a right spirit within me. It was there once, Lord, put it there again. The law on my heart has become like an inscription hard to read: write it anew, gracious Maker. Remove the evil as I have entreated You; but, O replace it with good. The two sentences make a complete prayer. Create what is not there at all; renew that which is there, but is in a sadly feeble state.”
Prayer Focus
Thank You God for Your creative power. You have made the heavens and the earth. As David asked, so I ask, create in me a clean heart. Clean my thoughts and my attitudes. Create in me a clean heart so that I might be used by You to bring honor to Your name.
From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
And behold again into whose care a broken heart and a contrite spirit has put this poor creature; he is under the care of God, the care and cure of Christ. If a man was sure that his disease had put him under the special care of the king and the queen, yet could he not be sure of life, he might die under their sovereign hands. Ay, but here is a man in the favor of God, and under the hand of Christ to be healed; under whose hand none yet ever died for want of skill and power in him to save their life; wherefore this man must live; Christ has in commission not only to bind up his wounds, but to heal him. He has of himself so expounded it in reading his commission; wherefore he that has his heart broken, and that is of a contrite spirit, must not only be taken in hand, but healed; healed of his pain, grief, sorrow, sin, and fears of death and hell; wherefore he adds, that he must give unto such 'beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, ' and must 'comfort all that mourn' (Isa 61:2, 3). This, I say, he has in the commission, the broken-hearted are put into his hand, and he has said himself he will heal him. Hence he says of that same man, 'I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him, and to his mourners; - and I will heal him' (Isa 57:18, 19).