Do you pray daily? Do you pray more than once per day? What do you pray for? What is your most consistent request from God? Are you regularly praying that God works in your life? Are you praying he changes your heart? Are you praying for spiritual renewal?
Many of us have been taught that we should pray daily. Some of us pray every morning. Some of us pray over every meal. Some of us pray every evening before going to bed. Some of us may pray once we are in bed. Praying regularly is a good habit to have.
After David’s severe acts of sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, he repented with a contrite heart. His eyes had been opened by Nathan’s words, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 11:27). David realized he had been disobedient to God’s commands, acted unkinglike, and had lost his integrity. David realized he needed God to clean his heart and renew him.
We need to ask God to clean our hearts as well. We may not have committed adultery or murder, but our sin is no less egregious. We often discount our sin as being minor. Yet even the smallest sin required Jesus to go to the cross. In Romans 6:1, Paul asks a rhetorical question, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” The obvious answer is no. Paul is implying that we should eliminate sin from our lives.
We cannot eliminate sin on our own. We need God to come into our hearts and remove the filth of sin from us; not merely forgive us but clean it out. This requires us to ask God to do just that. David does that succinctly in Psalm 51. He recognizes the abhorrent sin in his life and asks that God remove it and fill him with God’s Spirit. We would do well to do the same.
I pray we all recognize the severity of our sin. I pray we ask God to remove the sin from our hearts. I pray each one of us will ask God to fill us with his Spirit and renew us in Jesus Christ. Know your sin is abhorrent. Seek God with a contrite heart. Ask God to remove your sin. Ask God to fill you with his Holy Spirit.
Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Marty Pressey 