My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 51

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

David has just reviewed his sins, laid them all out to the Lord, begged for forgiveness, and asked God for an act of creation, no small request. He knew he needed a clean heart, and after referring to washing away of his iniquities and purging of his sins, he still understood that the heart was the matter, the dead weight holding him down, the unrighteous influence in his pursuit of God. His heart was not in need of a repair, or medicine, as if it had any redeeming value.

He begged for the creation of a clean heart!

As the new heart is created, the natural fruit of a clean heart is described in the next three verses.

A Teacher of Transgressors

The clean heart can’t help but to share the truth with those who have it not. Whether it is with a believer who may be sliding a bit, or a lost soul who has never understood the grace of God, a clean heart is motivated to declare God’s goodness.

A Tongue of Singing

Recently, I have been listening to the old hymns, and when I am alone, I sometimes sing them to myself. (I restrict my singing around others as an act of love towards them!) At the Cross – what a hymn. Of course I usually only sing the chorus,

At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight, And now I am happy all the day!

What great lyrics to dwell on in the body of the song itself.

Alas, and did my Savior bleed?   And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head   For such a worm as I?

Was it for sins that I had done  He groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity! grace unknown! And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide,   And shut His glories in, When Christ, the mighty Maker, died For man, His creature’s sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face While His dear cross appears. Dissolve my heart in thankfulness, And melt mine eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay The debt of love I owe; Here, Lord, I give myself away, ’Tis all that I can do.

A Mouth of Praise

A praising mouth. The joy of expressing praise to God. Of speaking of His glories, of His faithfulness, of His steadfast love, of His mercy.

Recently I have been meditating in the morning about what it mean for God to be the Highest of all. That there are no gods like Him, that none are as lofty, or above Him. The implications of this truth is growing in my mind and heart, and the blessings are such that I can not explain. Oh to try, but words fail me!

Let us pickup on verse 16 in our next post, and give yourself some time this day the Lord has given us, to consider the One who has provided all things to us, and to take a few moments to meditate on Who He is. It shall transform you!

2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

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