Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.
– Psalm 51:10
The Psalm is one of the most well-known psalms. It’s David’s confession of sin after he had sinned with and against Bathsheba and her husband. And Nathan confronts him about it. And he writes this psalm, starting from the very beginning, “Have mercy on me Oh God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin.”
Psalm 51:10 is a solemn prayer.
Every follower of Jesus knows what it’s like to cry out to God like this. This is the moment of salvation when we see our sin and we confess it before God, and we ask for his abundant mercy and steadfast love to blot out our transgressions by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Shed on a cross for us when we ask him to wash us thoroughly from our inequity and cleanse us from our sin. This is the point of salvation, and this is the process of salvation. Sanctification is the theological term we often use to describe how we are continually being conformed to the image of Jesus, which involves continually confessing sin when we turn back to transgression and iniquity and confess that before God, and he cleanses us and reminds us of the blood of Jesus for us.
And all that leads to verse 10. And why I want to lead us specifically to pray according to it is because David is saying, I need a clean heart. Oh God, I need a right spirit within me that follows you, that seeks you, that obeys your Word, that wants what you want. And this is sanctification. It’s asking God to make our hearts more and more like his heart, to make our spirits more and more in tune with his Holy Spirit.
Psalm 51:10 reminds one day we will be fully conformed to God’s image.
I can’t wait for the day in heaven when glorification happens, when sin will be no more, when all of our wants will be trustworthy, all of our desires will be good. Can you just imagine that you don’t even have to question what you’re wanting or your desires or what you’re thinking or what’s motivating you, because we will be holy as he is holy. We will be fully conformed to his image, but that’s not yet for us in this fallen world.
And so we pray more and more and more for this. I just want to lead us to pray for this in light of Psalm 51:10. Oh God, we praise you for your abundant mercy and your steadfast love for us. Jesus, we praise you all over again today for the cross, for living the life we could not live a life of no sin. We praise you for your sinlessness, for your clean heart and right spirit at every moment you are on this earth.
Jesus, we praise you for your holiness, and we praise you for dying the death. We deserve to die for paying the price for our sin, for becoming sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. And we praise you for your resurrection from the dead. Jesus, we exalt you as the risen Lord who’s conquered sin and the grave, and we praise you for your ascension to the right hand of the Father and for sending your Spirit down to live in us.
This verse reminds us of the mercy of God.
And so we pray, oh God, create in us a clean heart by the power of your Spirit in us. Make our hearts clean today, more clean today than they were yesterday, and more clean tomorrow than they are today. Renew a right spirit within us. God, we pray for our spirits to be in tune with your Holy Spirit, to want what you want to think, what you think to desire, what you desire to say that which is honoring to you, to act in ways that are honoring to you.
Lord, we just pray… Fill us with your Holy Spirit that we might be holy as you are holy… Create in us more and more the heart that you desire for us that is best for us. A clean heart and renew right spirits within us. God help us in our struggles with besetting sins to turn from them by your power. And to live in the freedom you’ve made possible for us. Oh God, we pray this for our lives. God, we pray this for others around us who don’t know you. God, help us to be ambassadors for Jesus today. To bring the good news of righteousness and redemption and restoration to you that’s possible for anybody around us who doesn’t know you through Jesus.
Prayer for the Rakhine People
And God, we pray that you’d help us to spread this all over the world. We pray specifically for the Rakhine people of Myanmar. We pray for 2.6 million of them, most of them Buddhists. Most of them have little to no knowledge of your love for them… Of your sacrifice, Jesus, on the cross for their sins… That they might have new hearts and new spirits and restoration to you forever for eternal life.
God, we pray that the Rakhine people would be reached with the gospel. We pray for your blessing on the churches and followers of Jesus that are among the Rakhine. Give them boldness in the power of your Spirit for the spread of the gospel among their entire people group. God, we pray all of this according to your Word, which we love. We pray this in light of Psalm 51:10. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
