Psalm 51:10
 Create in me a clean heart, O God...

What a great prayer to pray. A clean heart is so needed. When the heart is clean, thoughts are unpolluted, love is pure, and conscience is clear. All that cleanness produces relationships that last. The best thing about a clean heart is that it causes eyes to see God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matt 5)

You know what I mean! We are not talking about the muscle that beats in a chest or corneas for vision. We are talking about our lives being connected to Christ in awesome life-giving ways. We are talking about closeness to source of life and love.

The saddest thing in the world is that few pray this simple prayer. We tend to not see God as creator. We most naturally don't see our hearts has being dirty and God as the only One who can create a clean one for us. We love to think of ourselves as creative. And basically good at heart. Certainly we can have creative ideas. And we can do some pretty loving things. But the truth is...there is a clean heart that is so awesome and so fantastically wonderful that only God can create it. We can't. But he can - and he does - because he wants to - "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26)

Dirty, guilty, unloved, horribly disappointed? Tried to fix the problem, only to make it worse? David can identify. He was the one who prayed this prayer after carrying out his crazy plans which he thought would thrill his heart.

Clean hearts don't evolve over time through will power. They are created. By God, through Christ.

When you are my life - I love my life

When you are my life - I love my life
          Dying with you - I live

When you are my joy - I have real joy
          Even in suffering - I rejoice

         

When we are connected to Jesus as the Lord God of our lives, the terrible is swallowed by the very best. Let me share some places in scripture that encourage and strengthen us in this experience.  

Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (ESV)

2 Corinthians 4:8–10
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (ESV)

Revelation 2:9
"I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich)..." (ESV)

Revelation 2:8
"The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life." (ESV)

Philippians 4:4
(says the apostle in chains) Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. (ESV)