“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me …” Psalm 51:10 ESV.

Every January, many of us make our resolutions with the most earnest of intentions. Resolutions to try harder in a specific area of our lives. Sometimes we succeed but more often than not, we don’t. As the months fade away, so can our determination to do better. And with that can come feelings of defeat. This has been my story many times over and perhaps it is yours, too?

But the Lord showed me, through my own experiences, that true lasting change doesn’t begin on the outside nor will it ever happen in my own strength. It always begins in the heart …

God is the God of the heart …

This broken world we live in is more appearance driven than being genuine from the heart, and it tries to mask itself behind smoke and mirrors. Just keep it nice and shiny on the outside and no one needs to know that we are literally dying on the inside …

King David wrote Psalm 51 after the Prophet Nathan approached him about his affair with Bathsheba and his subsequent murder of her husband to hide his sin. His words from verse 10 might just be the best New Year Resolution prayer we could ever pray …

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me …” Psalm 51:10 ESV.

Maybe you’re thinking right now: “How does this apply to me? I’ve always been faithful to my spouse and I’ve never killed anyone.“

I’ve said those exact words myself! But true to Jesus, He will pierce through all our smoke and mirrors by going straight for our hearts …

We might think our hands are clean because we never killed anyone …

But the truth is: to be angry at a brother or sister is to commit murder in our hearts. 

In His beautiful Beatitudes, also called The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addressed this …

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell“ Matthew 5:21-22 NIV.

Or we might think our hands are clean because we’ve never had an affair …

But the truth is: to lust after someone is to already commit adultery with them in our hearts.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” Matthew 5:27-28 NIV.

What is kept hidden in this world is never hidden from our all-seeing, all-knowing GOD …

Jesus is more concerned with the condition of our hearts than how well we practice behavior management. Our meticulous landscaping efforts on the outside mean nothing if there is darkness lurking behind our closed curtains and locked doors.

Again, we might think our hands are clean because we never lie … well, we only tell those small … you know … insignificant little white lies to spare somebody’s feelings. These don’t count …

But the truth is: to God, a lie is a lie. It is dishonesty, period. And every sin, big or small, draws us away from God …

“The Lord detests lying lips, but He delights in people who are trustworthy.” Proverbs 12:22 NIV.

Here’s another one …

We might think our hands are clean because we’ve never robbed a bank …

But the truth is: Scheming within our hearts to take anything that doesn’t belong to us is thievery. It could be lying on our taxes, flirting with someone’s husband, scrolling the internet on company time or taking office supplies without permission. Smoke and mirrors will deceive us into believing that this is all innocent enough when compared to bank robbery. But to God, a thief is a thief, period …

This world tends to rack and stack sins and this deceptive practice puts us in the extremely dangerous posture of self righteousness. Judging and comparing other people to ourselves can lull us into a false sense of security, “well (cough cough), compared to Joe Blow there, we can’t be doing that bad with the big man upstairs!” But Jesus teaches us that sin is sin. And sin will always put a wedge between us and God.

God’s heart is always for our good …

One time we were out with a group of people for lunch. As we went to leave, an older gentleman from the group said to me, “Look at this,” pointing to a dirty napkin that had fallen on the floor. Then he leaned in and smiled, motioned to the workers behind the counter, and said: “I could let myself slip on this and they will have to pay …”

I remember walking to my car, completely stunned with horror by what he just said. In my self righteousness, I told God, “I could never allow myself to get hurt so I could sue somebody!” But time went by and we found ourselves sitting in a restaurant once more. I was looking over the check (as I was always in the habit of doing) and noticed that the server forgot to put my coffee on our bill. Oh well, no big deal right? After a few minutes went by, God whispered to me, “Will you only have them fix the bill when it works to your advantage?”

I was SO convicted. The same seeds of covetousness, entitlement and deception, that is behind all thievery, was in my heart just as much as it was in the man’s heart that I judged earlier.

God’s Word tells us: “above all else, we need to guard our hearts because everything we do flows from it”… Prov 4:23.

When we maintain a posture of self righteousness by measuring our ‘self perceived’ little sins against the colossal SINS of those offensive people we deem undeserving of mercy, it’s as if we’re imagining ourselves standing on a higher hill than them. This is a ploy from the enemy to blind us to our own desperate need for God’s mercy and forgiveness for ourselves. 

Jesus doesn’t play favorites and the ground is level at the foot of His Cross …

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 NIV.

This broken world currently seeks a false security and absolution from any and all personal responsibility by hiding behind smoke and mirrors. Just keep it nice and shiny on the outside and no one needs to know what’s really happening on the inside …

But God desires for no one to perish …

When we are born again, God takes us out of the shadows and into His marvelous light. And His Heavenly light exposed every dark, hidden pocket in my heart and convicted me of all my motives and intentions. At first this was frightening because I expected pain and rejection to follow but it never did. That’s because Satan was and is our accuser, not God. The enemy focuses on our behavior to condemn our identity. But God focuses on our identity (we are all lovingly created in His image) and He convicts us of behavior that hurts or cripples us so He can bring healing and restoration to our lives.

There’s a huge difference between Satan’s condemnation and God’s convictions and it’s vital to know the difference.

After surrendering, the first thing God shined His floodlight on was my wrong perception of Him. He showed me that my heart struggled to fully receive Him as my loving Heavenly Father because I associated the word father with a performance based love that always led to rejection and some form of punishment every time. And who needed more of that from God?

But God is good and His love is genuine and unconditional. He desires for all His born again children to find their rest in Him, doing everything for His honor and glory from this place of knowing we are already fully loved and accepted by Him. God’s Truth is absolute! We don’t have to worry that we might wake up one day to discover that the finish line had been moved. Or that one of God’s promises was revoked overnight because we had a bad day yesterday! 

James 1:17 tells us that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (NIV).

This appearance driven world is like shifting shadows. But God is not …

Since being born again, God has been putting me on His proverbial Potter’s Wheel as often as I would cooperate with Him. At first, I was resistant to this because I struggled to grasp God’s love for me and I didn’t trust Him, but now I welcome it!

Self righteousness, racking and stacking sin, and not trusting God are not the only ways my heart wasn’t clean. And through the years, I learned I had these behaviors and attitudes and they were crippling my walk with God:  

• I had an orphan spirit and strived to earn love and approval.
• I was a people pleaser and feared what they thought of me.
• I had a fear of anger and would literally shut down when someone got angry. My hubby helped me to see how I would also immediately blame myself for other people’s anger before taking time to process what was really going on.
• I looked at life through the filter of rejection and would hide my true self.
• I felt responsible to keep people fixed and happy.
• I would say yes when I really needed to say no.
• I harbored unforgiveness to keep certain people from hurting me again.
• I was a rescuer and an enabler.
• I didn’t know anything about creating and maintaining healthy boundaries.
• I had trouble asking for help or prayer because I wanted to be a giver, not a taker.

 God’s heart desires for all of us to come to a saving knowledge of Him …

Last summer, we did a study called “Get Out of Your Head” by Jennie Allen with Proverbs 31 Ministries. And the quote that literally jumped off the page at me was found on page 65:

“Every toxic thought, spiraling emotional cycle, and trap of the enemy we fall for somehow deep down involves a wrong belief about God.”

After that pivotal summer study, the Lord had me remember my wrong perceptions about Him in the beginning. And now, many years later, He took my list above and showed me that when I fear displeasing people, I continued to operate from a wrong belief system about God and my heart was not clean towards Him. I pretty much had made other people an idol of mine.

An idol? Yes … this convicted me BIG time because idol worship is rebellion.

We may think our hands are clean because we’ve heeded the Bible’s warnings about worshipping unliving man made idols instead of our living Creator, GOD.  

But the truth is: an idol goes way beyond the obvious carved wood, stone or golden image. It is anything or anyone that we put before God. And yes, God showed me that people can definitely become idols for us if we let them come before HIM in our hearts. An idol is an idol …

“Those who worship false gods turn their backs on all God’s mercies.” Jonah 2:8 NLT

All this time, I was seeking and simultaneously turning my back on all God’s mercies for me … 

God wants us to come to Him just as we are, no smoke and mirrors. He has so much mercy for where we’ve been in life and desires to heal us of crippling behavior. God is not interested in behavior management. He wants to completely transform us from the inside out. But we have to do our part by surrendering, trusting, yielding and cooperating with His Holy Spirit within us. I wish I had trusted more and wrestled less with the Lord because I would have experienced healing and freedom much quicker than I did. I can now see how every single behavior from my list stained my heart and strained my relationship with God. How?

• An orphan spirit fears abandonment and does not trust GOD or His love, presence and faithfulness.
• People pleasing puts people, who are created beings, above God, our Creator.
• Angry people are not powerful people, they are even more fearful than I was. When we cave in to someone’s anger in an effort to appease them, we actually get in God’s way and are assisting the enemy in keeping them stuck. This is a radical shift in how I viewed angry people before.
• As Believers in Christ, when someone rejects us for speaking the truth, we must remember that they have first rejected Christ in their hearts. Their battle is with God, not us. Satan knows his end is quickly drawing near and he is fighting hard right now to take as many people with him as possible. 
• This is a false responsibility. By complying with someone’s expectations to keep them constantly fixed and happy, we are once again getting in God’s way. The absolute best thing we can do is to point them to Christ. Real peace and true joy can only be found in Him.
• When we have trouble saying no, guess what?  We are getting in God’s way and robbing somebody else of their God given assignment. The Holy Spirit gives us grace to do what He leads us to do. But He is not obligated to help us accomplish a task He did not ask us to pick up in the first place.
• Unforgiveness is a trap from the enemy. In Matthew 18:21-35, we learn that if we hold onto unforgiveness, we will find ourselves in a prison of torment. The unforgiven behavior will also continue to hurt us like a fresh wound, over and over again. Once was more than enough …
• We are called to help carry the burdens of our brothers and sisters during fiery seasons. But we are not called to shoulder someone’s daily responsibilities and rob them of growth and maturity. Enabling someone is crippling them and then posturing ourselves as their rescuer …
• Healthy boundaries are God’s idea! We can’t continue to give someone level 10 access to us after they have proven time and again that they have no desire to rise above a level 2 in their sense of responsibility in the relationship. God calls us to freely forgive but trust needs to be earned.
• A friend convicted me on this one and she was so right! If we struggle to ask for help or prayer, this is not humility. It is pride. Yikes! And we rob our friends and family of the blessing to pray for us. It has nothing to do with being a taker. That’s a lie from the enemy who likes to isolate us, especially when we’re hurting or going through a tough season.

When Jesus revealed all this to me, I realized that I had let the spirit of fear become my master and I vacillated back and forth … serving Christ one minute and inadvertently serving the enemy the next. This made me lukewarm in my faith and insincere in my heart. An unstable, double minded person. And James:1:5-8 warns us that a double minded person cannot expect to receive anything from the Lord. 

Remember the main Bible Verse for this post?

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10 (ESV).

I not only need God to clean my heart but I need Him to renew a right spirit within me …

2 Tim 1:7 NKJV tells us: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

As a born again Believer, I do not serve the spirit of fear. And in this new year, I want to stop being lukewarm. I want to grow bolder in my faith and I know it will require a radical heart change. I need to first grow in my reverential fear and awe of God because when we don’t fear God in a healthy way, we will fear everyone and everything else in a very unhealthy way.  

I want to be more like David and keep God as the only Giant on my radar. That way when the spirit of fear tries to rise up and make itself appear like a giant, it won’t succeed because it will never measure up in the shadows of my great big colossal God, in Jesus’ Name! David’s confidence was in the LORD alone and not in himself.

David made mistakes just like we do but he loved God so much, that he was grieved when his sins hurt God’s heart. Stewarding God’s heart was David’s motivation to not participate in habitual sin. It was never just to make himself appear bright and shiny to the world, but he kept himself continuously swept clean and pure on the inside for his God. Removing the smoke and mirrors helped David to feel and hear God more clearly and see and recognize His activity all around him. We read in Acts 13:36 that David fulfilled his purpose in his generation. My heart is for every one of us to fulfill God’s purpose for us in this generation that we live in!

“Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:7-8 NIV

When we don't fear God in a healthy way, we will fear everything else in an unhealthy way. Click To Tweet

We only have one shot to live this earthly life. If we woke up this morning with His breath in our lungs, then we are truly blessed and He still has a great purpose for our lives. Today, as you look out over the next year, what do you see? I pray right now we will all feel a deep discontentment to keep going around the same mountains year after year. To keep doing things the way we’ve always done them while feeling discouraged because we were hoping for a different outcome this time around.

No matter how bad these past few years have been for us, it is empowering when we give God permission to shine His light of Truth on the part we play in shaping our own lives. True, we can’t be held responsible for the words and actions of other people but we need to be honest about the impact it had on us before we can move forward to receive a healing. And yes, when you stop pleasing people, you may be rejected. But please remember, when you speak the truth and are rejected, this reflects their heart, not yours. Let them go and continue to move forward. I pray you will experience the deep freedom that comes when we take back the reins of our lives and place them where they belong … in the very capable hands of Christ Himself.

Father God, thank you SO much for Your kindness and Your gift of this brand new year! And Lord, we ask for You to change our hearts today. Take away our hearts of stone and give us YOUR heart, Lord Jesus! Restore to us the joy of Your salvation and grant us a willing spirit, to sustain us. (Ps 51:12). It is only because of You that we even exist on this planet. It is You Who sustains us by Your breath in our lungs and it will only be YOU who can raise us up on that last day. I pray that You would give us clean and pure hearts and renew a right and steadfast spirit within us. Please call our attention to anything that will get in the way of drawing closer to You this year. Help us to fulfill Your will and purpose for our lives right now in this generation that we live in. It is in Jesus’ name we pray … amen and amen.

God bless you abundantly in this New Year …

“Create in Me a Clean Heart, O God, and Renew a Right Spirit Within Me” | Psalm 51:10 @ freshgracefortoday.com

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Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32 NIV