Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 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. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then there will be righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

This Psalm was David’s cry for mercy after being confronted with his sin of murdering Uriah the Hittite so that he could have Bathsheba for his own wife. David had a man killed so that he could have his wife. David admitted his sin, owned up to it, and pleaded for God’s mercy. This psalm is an earnest admission of guilt. David didn’t try to pass the blame. He acknowledged that he was a poor, miserable sinner, one who deserved nothing but punishment from God. But his words also show that he knew God had promised mercy for Jesus’ sake. Sure, this was long before Jesus had been born, but David believed God’s promise of a Savior. He talks about the salvation God gives. He knew that Good News was for him.

You and I have the same evil in our hearts that led David to sin. Jesus spoke of that in His Sermon on the Mount.

Mark 7:21-23  For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.'”

A point Jesus was trying to make is that people spend more time worrying about things OUTSIDE of them while the problem is in our own HEARTS. We are more concerned with appearances than we are with the sinful condition of our hearts. Sprucing up the outside while ignoring the inside would be like spending all your time polishing and waxing your car, but never servicing the engine or changing the oil. Or it is like putting a new coat of paint on a house that has been infested with termites. The outside may try to hide what is inside, but it is still there. Evil resides within us, in our hearts. We need clean hearts. We need to cry out with David, Create in me a clean heart, O God.

God does that, He gives us clean hearts. It is not our doing, but God’s. When you do the kind of soul-searching David did in that Psalm, when you recognize your sin and admit it to yourself and to God, when you have put your faith in Jesus, the Good News of the forgiveness God accomplished through Jesus will be most meaningful to you. Since Jesus has paid the price for sin with a perfect life and an innocent death, God gives those who believe in Him clean hearts.

The heart is the heart of the matter. As is your heart, so is your life. To live the life God desires, you must have a clean heart. That happens when you cling to the promises God has made in His Word. Jesus died to wash away the stain of sin from your heart. Jesus rose again so that you might live in purity before God. He has washed you so that you might respond to God with the actions that come from a clean heart.

Our continued prayer needs to be that God would cleanse and change our hearts to enable us to live a new life as His children.