Pure Heart

DEVOTION

PSALMS

PURE HEART

Ps 51

51:1 For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. 5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. 6 Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. 14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

18 In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then there will be righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

NIV

In the grand scheme of human kind it appears those individuals who have great wealth and power get caught up in great sin, if there is levels of sin. We are witness today of many of the rich and powerful men being exposed for taken advantage of women. It may well have happen before David by other kings and pharaohs. It most likely has happened after David and throughout history right up to the present. This does not excuse it, but merely notes it is a condition of humankind to sin. How we respond to sin it the question at hand. It would appear David was so overtaken by his sin that he was not aware, or refused to acknowledge what he was doing was wrong. Once Nathan exposed his sin, David was filled with remorse and guilt. His heart was broken that he could have gotten himself so wrapped up in this behavior he did not see it as sin. His cry for God to create in him a pure heart show how broken he was. He sees how wicked he is, even from the time his conception. We would have thought David was already a man of pure heart. He was, even in his youth bent toward God. He stood before Goliath in the name of Yahweh, Jehovah, the God of hosts. According to the timeline of David, after the slaying of Goliath, he spends time in the court of Saul, after which Saul tries to kill him. After many battles David is anointed king and captures Jerusalem, making it the city of God. He brought the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem and we recall how he danced before it. His Heart was bent toward God, but after time somehow he was deceived by his own heart. This is where we come in. We too can be deceived by our own heart, even if it is bent toward God. How we respond to the sin in our life is the point of this song of David. Crushed to the core, filled with guilt and remorse, broken before God. Take this heart and destroy it, creating within a pure heart, a clean heart. We need to know our sin and seek to be cleansed, to have it purged from our heart, to be washed, and today we say washed in the blood of the Lamb. We cannot tolerate any level of sin on our lives, even though we cannot escape sin altogether. Only Jesus was able to live a sinless, perfect life, but then again he was also God in the flesh. Nevertheless we cannot become content with our sin, or complacent with it. Our cry should forever be for God to have mercy on us. The fact is he already did by sending Jesus to die in the cross, taking all our sin upon himself. But we cannot take advantage of his mercy or grace, as God says through Paul, should we continue to sin so grace can abound? God forbid! No, our response to sin should be brokenness before God. Our heart is bent toward him, but it still gets deceived or does the deceiving and sin takes its grip. Our cry is for God to forgive, to create in us a clean heart, a pure heart so we might sing, truly sing his praises before the people. We will sing his praises before the people, we will speak of his righteousness, which is Jesus. Let us not be content with any amount of sin, in word, thought or deed. Oh, Lord create in us a clean heart.