The Heart – Psalm 51:10-17

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. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit …The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise … Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will be converted to You. 

A good deal of my Christian life has been spent with this prayer on the tip of my tongue and it is not hard to imagine why. My heart was unclean, I did not have a steadfast spirit and being cast away and stripped of the Holy Spirit was a real possibility, or so it seemed. Living in this state of uncertainty constituted my broken and contrite heart. I was on fire for God and I did my best to convert other sinners to this revelation of brokenness but I didn’t have many takers. (Thank God!)  I should have given closer attention to the following sentence from today’s passage;

You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering…

 

Nor any offering, we might imagine currying favor with God. The truth is, when I was singing my dirge of brokenness, thinking I was red hot for God, I was missing a good deal of what Christ died for – my ability to rest in his love, in spite of whatever sacrifices I have or have not made.

Where did the idea come from that my heart was unclean and that I deserved to be cast away? In the Middle With Mystery is the long answer to that question. The short answer is that it came from the hell created by religion. Here, I’m not speaking of religion in its organized expressions. I’m speaking of the heart’s entanglement with deception. It was a blatant lie that God’s love and commitment to me were contingent on my performance, yet this was the operative principle in my heart, even as a born again follower of Christ!

There is a certain type of zeal generated when the devout look in upon their depravity. A man will go to great lengths to cleanse himself of the darkness he finds, by way of his sacrifices. He will tithe and serve and congratulate himself for his devotion, knowing that he has made a contribution to God’s work. This is the defiled math of religion. I’ve lived inside this calculation.

God made his point in the old testament. Men, even chosen ones, do not have the capacity for holiness in themselves. It would require a new heart and a new life to birth anything truly holy. It was going to have to come from Love not Law. The Jew’s labors to cleanse themselves never touched the inside of the cup. Jesus came to give us new life. He would fill the cup with his very own life, that we might become an utterly new creation – citizens of a kingdom which knows no end.

New Testament math sounds like this. We must live within this calculation …

Thank you Lord that you have created in me a clean heart and renewed a steadfast spirit within me. Thank you that you have not cast me away from Your presence. Thank you that You have given me Your Holy Spirit. Thank you that you restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Oh Lord, that I may teach this truth to transgressors and see sinners converted to this gospel. So be it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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