January 12
Light for the DaysCreate in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.—Psalms 51:10.
IS it my great desire that my corrupt and sinful nature should be changed? Like David, do I feel the sinfulness of my heart: and that, of myself, I am unable to cleanse it? And is my prayer, like his, "Create in me a clean heart, O God"? Do I study God's word to know how the heart may be made clean? Do I earnestly pray for the Holy Spirit, that my heart may be thoroughly cleansed?
Purity of heart implies a care of the heart, a discipline of the imagination, a covenant with the eyes, an avoidance of all appearance of evil, a conscientious regulation of our secret thoughts, desires and affections, as in the sight of God. It consists in such an inward change and renovation of the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, as leads us to approve and comply with whatever is pure and holy and commanded by God.—E. H. NEVIN.
Thy deserts for sin are, rejection, wrath, hell; Christ's deserts are, pardon, acceptance, life. If God by his Spirit hath shown thee the former, he will surely give thee the latter.—CARLOS WILCOX.
Oh, for a lowly, contrite heart,
Believing, true and clean!
Which neither life nor death can part,
From Him who dwells within:
A heart in every thought renewed,
And full of love divine;
Perfect and right and pure and good,
A copy, Lord, of thine.—C. WESLEY.