Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; And uphold me with a willing spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; And sinners shall be converted unto thee Psalms 51:10–13.
We have heard a superficial interpretation of this many times: “Get right with God, then go to work and win some souls to the Lord”; but it isn’t speaking about that.
This Psalm points out an effect that will be as spontaneous as “two and two make four.” A right spirit causes something to come forth from you that so radiates that there is an attraction, a drawing, and it draws people. The transgressor is taught the ways of the Lord by what is in your spirit. That teaches them of the Lord, and it converts people to the Lord.
One of the young girls was asked, “How are you?” She answered, “I’m beautiful!” Although she is nice looking, that wasn’t what she meant. She was talking about the sum total of everything she was in her spirit that was radiating out.
Now, let’s read it that way. “Create in me a clean heart, O God; And renew a beautiful spirit within me.” And then, Cast me not away from thy presence; And take not thy holy Spirit from me. It is all related.
Did you ever have a fear of losing out with the Lord and being cast out of His presence? Have you ever had the fear, “Oh, I’m not going to make it?” Here is a little tip on how you can be sure you will make it: if in you there is that spirit reaching out to the Lord, if really down inside, no matter what happens to you, you know there is a clean heart.
I’m not saying you don’t run into all kinds of problems of contamination by the world, but to be clean in heart is not to be puritanically square; it is something entirely different. It means without that duplicity, that corruption of the age, something still yearns, “Lord, to whom shall we go? There is nobody else to turn to; we love You, Lord.”
What is a right spirit? A right spirit is when someone has done you a great wrong you turn the other cheek, and you are blissfully holy through the whole procedure.
The wrong reactions that are spontaneous and fast, followed by instant repentance, also indicate a right spirit. For a man to be a good repenter means that he is aware that there are things in him to be repented of, and one who has a right spirit is one who is a perpetual repenter before the Lord, even before the offense occurs. It doesn’t mean perfection by everybody’s standards, but it does by God’s—He looks on the spirit, and accounts it as righteousness.
What will happen then? Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; And uphold me with a willing spirit. It is good to be willing. “Not my will, but Thine be done; so let the fullness of the Son dwell within this heart that I have offered Thee.”
Are you willing to lay your life on the alter? Could you give your life for the Lord? Are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to do all of these things? Don’t say “Yes” so quickly—you don’t know. You are not real sure—you just think you are.
Say it this way, “Lord, I’m willing, because I know I’m willing to be willing with Your help.” Even when you’re not willing, and there’s a reluctance in you, you’re willing for God to deal with the reluctance.
“Lord, I can’t do it. I just can’t do it, but I’m willing for You to help me so that I will be willing. O God, if I could just believe! I get wiped out I’m so full of unbelief.” You are? Do you believe that God wants you to have faith? Then, in the midst of your doubts, look up and say, “Lord, I am trusting You for faith to believe You.”
When you come to the Communion Altar, don’t cross yourself out, “Oh, I committed six of the deadly sins this week.” Maybe you really didn’t do them, but there were a number of things in your heart that caused you to want to.
Are you willing to be holy? To that which desires and cries, As the heart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after Thee, O God. Psalms 42:1. “I want to be right. I want to be holy. I want to be willing. I want You, Lord.” Then, what happens? You stumble along toward that perfection, and all the time you’re doing it, transgressors are learning the ways of God through your life, and sinners are being converted to you.
We’ve all walked the way of foolishness. But the way of foolishness that is so deadly is that you don’t see that God really loves you, and you’re always making an unbeliever out of yourself.
“I believe; I am a believer. I’m reaching to You, Lord. I want a clean heart, a right spirit.” The word translated from the Hebrew “right spirit” is the same as “steadfast spirit”, and I like it better, because the old Hebrew language wasn’t speaking about rightness in the sense of exactness.
Often in the law it does, but not in the Psalms. In the Psalms it is speaking about being right in the sense of being steadfast.
“I’m wrong, I’m not in the right,” people say, “I stumble, I falter, I fail.” True enough, but you can still have a right spirit, because that’s synonymous with a steadfast spirit. Skinned knees and elbows, bruises, lumps, all the falls notwithstanding, I’m steadfastly reaching in to have the spirit God wants me to have, and the heart He wants me to have. Don’t be conditioned with this idea of rightness and wrongness; it’s a relative thing anyway. No one is completely right in the old order sense.
“Oh, I want to be right!” Do you mean exact, so that you can use your little ruler on somebody else and tell them how wrong they are? How can you say what is right or wrong? The steadfast striving and reaching into God and believing at whatever stage of growth you are, that is a right spirit.
What is perfection? Which is perfect, the rose bud or the fully opened rose? Does perfection mean that the perfect rose bud has gone as far as it can go, or will it continue to develop into its perfection this afternoon or tomorrow? What is perfection? How does God look upon it?
“I’ve reached the ultimate. I’m perfect.” Who could live with people with that idea of perfection? We’re living with each other. You are perfect now, or you can be, because your heart wants to walk with God with a steadfast spirit. And if you’re not willing, you’re willing to be willing. If you’re not there, you’re trusting God to make you that.
Look into your heart and say, “I’m a believer.” Say to the Lord, “You’re the Author, the Finisher, the Alpha, the Omega.” There is not a thing God started but what He can make a good end of it.
We will say of this day that the great sin of the Body was accepting wipeouts. Don’t do it. It is not so much how many times you fall, but what you do when you’re down. Are you able to get up and keep believing? We don’t want to lie on the field of battle while the devil grabs a heel and drags us off to his camp. We’ll get up and spit in his eye and have another round at it. Lord help us.
Father, we thank You. You are the Father of many people in their unworthiness, and through Jesus Christ the Lord, You are following through Your plan to conform us to the image of Your dear Son. We ask You to help us. We know where we need forgiveness. We know we’re open where we should be closed; we’re closed where we should be open. We know we need to be willing to be blessed, and to be released into God in a greater measure.
Lord, we refuse to be defeated today because the victory is Yours, and we are believers in Your victory. We believe in Your victory; we believe in Your love. We believe in what You are doing. We believe in Your faithfulness, Lord. We believe in Your steadfast determination to bless us and make us like unto Yourself.
We submit, and we are submissive to becoming submissive if we are rebellious. We’re willing, and we’re willing to be willing, if we’re not. We are believers, and we’re believing for faith to overcome our unbelief, if it exists in our hearts in any measure. We’re victorious because we believe in Your victory. We come through the precious body and blood of our Lord with a faith in our hearts that grace abounds for each one of us. Amen.