25 May | EVERYONE
«Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.» Psalm 51: 10
Owen loves Jesus. He allowed himself to be met by the Savior in a night of delirium, horror, and suffering. Tongues of fire and hell licked at his wounded body as he battled between life and death, victim of a cocaine overdose. Shapeless shadows approached him, menacing. Grotesque figures, fruits of his sick imagination.
In his desperation he cried out to Jesus and received an answer. Coming out of the rehab clinic, he was a transformed man. His life is one of the great testimonies of the transforming power of Jesus Christ. What Owen does not understand is why he continues to desire to do terrible things if he is already converted. Today’s verse brings the answer for all people who, like Owen, try to walk in God’s ways but discover that there is a strange force within them that pushes them towards evil.
One day Peter wrote of the “corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 1:4). He was referring to the sinful nature with which we all came into the world. That nature does not like to walk in God’s ways. It is the source of evil desires. Unfortunately, it will accompany us until the coming of Christ. It will be then that “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53).
“Our hearts are evil, and we cannot change them. […] There must be a power working from within, a new life from above, before men can be changed from sin to holiness. That power is Christ” (Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ, p. 16).
David understood perfectly well how dirty and destructive fallen nature is for human beings; therefore, after sinning and repenting, he wept before God and begged Him to give him a new being (“a clean heart” and “a steadfast spirit”).
Take Action
Ask God to change your heart to see all things with His eyes, full of purity and wisdom. Sing “A Clean Heart” (if possible, with your family).