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Psalm 51:10-13 - Getting Right With God.

Psa 51:10-13; Getting Right With God.

Psa 51:10-13 (KJV)  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew 
a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and 
take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy 
salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach 
transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee. 

Psalm 51:10-13 (NLT) Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a 
right spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don't 
take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me again the joy of your 
salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Then I will teach your ways to 
sinners, and they will return to you. 

Psalm 51:10-13 (AMP) Create in me a clean heart, O God, and 
renew a right, persevering, and steadfast spirit within me. Cast me 
not away from Your presence and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. 
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and uphold me with a willing 
spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be 
converted and return to You. 

Psa 51:10-13 (CWR)  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a 
new, right spirit within me. Don't ask me to leave your presence and 
don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your 
salvation and grant me a willing heart to obey you. Then I will teach 
transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. 

CONTEXT

Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

This is the most famous of the penitential psalms (6, 32, 38, 
51, 102, 130, and 143). [Disciple SB] 

The Way Back to God.--I present before you the fifty-first 
psalm, a psalm filled with precious lessons. From it we may learn what 
course to follow if we have departed from the Lord. {3BC 1147} 

What a beautiful summation of the Twelve Steps David gives us in 
this psalm. [Life Recovery Devotional SB] 

This is the most adequate confession of sin in the Bible. There 
is no attempt to justify the sin. Sin is stated for what it is, and 
God is perceived for what He is. David could not forget his 
transgression. Its magnitude consisted not in what he had done to Bathsheba and 
Uriah, but in what he had done against the Lord. [Disciple SB] 

David was horror-stricken because of his sin's gravity. He felt 
that for God to remove the curse of this terrible wrongdoing from his 
conscience would take a miracle comparable to bringing the world into 
existence from nothing. Spiritual miracles are far more amazing than those 
concerning the physical universe. Forgiving, renewing, and reforming the 
human personality is one of God's great creative acts. Human power and 
intelligence cannot produce morally and spiritually pure persons. [Disciple 
SB] 

Because we are born as sinners our natural inclination is to 
please ourself rather than God. David followed that inclination when he 
took another man's wife. We also follow it when we sin in any way... 
Right conduct can come only from a clean heart and spirit. Ask God to 
create a pure heart in you. [Life Application SB] 

CROSS REFERENCES

Ezekiel 18:31 (KJV)  Cast away from you all your transgressions, 
whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: 
for why will ye die, O house of Israel?  

Romans 12:2 (KJV)  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye 
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that 
good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.  

Ezekiel 36:25-27 (NIV)  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and 
you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and 
from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit 
in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a 
heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow 
my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 

2 Cor. 5:17 (KJV)  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a 
new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are 
become new.  

Titus 3:5 (KJV)  Not by works of righteousness which we have 
done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of 
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;  

Luke 11:13 (KJV)  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?  

Ephes. 2:10 (KJV)  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should 
walk in them.  

1 Cor. 15:58 (KJV)  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye 
stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch 
as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.  

1 Peter 1:5 (KJV)  Who are kept by the power of God through 
faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  

Jude 1:24 (KJV)  Now unto him that is able to keep you from 
falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory 
with exceeding joy,  

COMMENTARY / APPLICATION

Create. As something new, which cannot emerge from what now is, 
and which only God can fashion [NIV SB] 

Create. Translates the Hebrew verb bara, which is used in the 
O.T. to refer to an activity of God and God alone. Only the Creator 
God can re-create man. [Believer's SB] 

Create. The verb translated create is the same one used in Gen. 
1:1 and refers to what only God can do. David was asking that his 
heart be renewed, restored, and transformed. God is the only source of 
such a renewal. [Nelson SB] 

A right spirit or a constant spirit; a spirit that is steadfast 
in its faith, and therefore constant in its obedience. [SDA 
Commentary] 

With thy free spirit. better translated, willing spirit; David 
prays to be kept in a frame of mind willing and ready to obey God and 
to serve Him. [SDA Commentary] 

It is by his Spirit that God gives his people a "new heart and . 
. . a new spirit" to live by his will. [NIV SB] 

When Jesus speaks of the new heart, He means the mind, the life, 
the whole being. To have a change of heart is to withdraw the 
affections from the world, and fasten them upon Christ. To have a new heart 
is to have a new mind, new purposes, new motives. What is the sign 
of a new heart?--a changed life. There is a daily, hourly dying to 
selfishness and pride.  {4BC 1164.10} 

Perhaps our most troubling times come when we are faced with the 
realization that we have sinned. How we deal with that sin makes all the 
difference in the world. It's like the difference between night and day. 
The difference between a crushing sense of guilt, and the buoyant 
realization that our heart is pure. 
This well-known psalm celebrating God's forgiveness was written 
by David after he committed adultery with Bathsheba, and then 
arranged for the death of her husband in battle. The first half of the 
psalm portrays the dark side of our experience. The second half the 
bright newness God offers believers who confess their sins to Him....  
Aware of the darkness within him, David cried out, "Create in me 
a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." God, 
who spoke light into existence, can do a creative work in us and 
make our soiled hearts pure. 
And when that happens? Then again there is joy in salvation. 
Then again we are able to "teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners 
will turn back to You." 
From the purified heart pour forth hymns of praise, and from the 
humble acknowledgment of what we are comes something new; a life of 
holiness. [The 365-Day Devotional Commentary] 

God wants us to be close to him and to experience his full and 
complete life. But sin that remains unconfessed makes such intimacy 
impossible. Confess your sin to God. You may still have to face some earthly 
consequences, as David did, but God will give back the joy of your 
relationship with him. [Life Application SB] 

How Hearts May Be Kept for God.-- The heart in its natural state 
is a habitation for unholy thoughts and sinful passions. When 
brought into subjection to Christ, it must be cleansed by the Spirit 
from all defilement.... Only in His strength can we keep guard over the 
words and actions. In the work of heart-keeping we must be instant in 
prayer, unwearied in petitioning the throne of grace for assistance. 
Those who take the name of Christian should come to God in earnestness 
and humility, pleading for help. The Saviour has told us to pray 
without ceasing. The Christian can not always be in the position of 
prayer, but his thoughts and desires can always be upward.... To keep your 
heart in heaven, will give vigor to all your graces, and put life into 
all your duties. To discipline the mind to dwell upon heavenly 
things, will put life and earnestness into all our endeavors.... The 
affections should center upon God. Contemplate His greatness, His mercy and 
excellences. Let His goodness and love and perfection of character captivate 
your heart. Converse upon His divine charms, and the heavenly 
mansions He is preparing for the faithful. {3BC 1157} 

And having become partakers of the heavenly gift, we are to go 
on unto perfection, being "kept by the power of God through faith." 
1 Peter 1:5. Yet we have a work to do to resist temptation. Those 
who would not fall a prey to Satan's devices must guard well the 
avenues of the soul; they must avoid reading, seeing, or hearing that 
which will suggest impure thoughts. The mind should not be left to 
wander at random upon every subject that the adversary of souls may 
suggest. "Girding up the loins of your mind," says the apostle Peter, "Be 
sober, . . . not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts 
in . . . your ignorance: but like as He which called you is holy, 
be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living." 1 Peter 
1:13-15, R.V. Says Paul, "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if 
there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these 
things." Philippians 4:8. This will require earnest prayer and unceasing 
watchfulness. We must be aided by the abiding influence of the Holy Spirit, 
which will attract the mind upward, and habituate it to dwell on pure 
and holy things. And we must give diligent study to the word of God. 
{PP 460} 

A Christian has victory over his besetments, over his passions. 
There is a remedy for the sin-sick soul. That remedy is in Jesus. 
Precious Saviour! His grace is sufficient... I saw how this grace could be 
obtained. Go to your closet, and there alone plead with God: "Create in me 
a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." Be in 
earnest, be sincere. Fervent prayer availeth much. Jacoblike, wrestle in 
prayer. Agonize. Jesus, in the garden, sweat great drops of blood; you 
must make an effort. Do not leave your closet until you feel strong 
in God; then watch, and just as long as you watch and pray you can 
keep these evil besetments under, and the grace of God can and will 
appear in you. {1T 158} 

"Lord, renew a right spirit within me." He who sincerely prays 
to God to do this, will prove his honesty by using the means 
through which God works. Be much in prayer; live much upon the Word of 
God; kill the lusts which have driven your Lord from you; be careful 
to watch over the future uprisings of sin. The Lord has his own 
appointed ways; sit by the wayside and you will be ready when he passes 
by. Continue in all those blessed ordinances which will foster and 
nourish your dying graces; and, knowing that all the power must proceed 
from him, cease not to cry, "Renew a right spirit within me." Morning 
and Evening by Charles H. Spurgeon 

Trouble and distress may lead us to perceive God's absence. This 
may be a revelation of God's displeasure and punishment and should 
lead to repentance. Israel regularly understood God as withdrawing 
and angry at His sinful people. Still they knew they could confess 
their sins and call on God for salvation. [Disciple SB] 

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. 
But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our 
defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 1 John 2:1 (NIV)