By Rikki Beth Poindexter
Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
Renew means “to resume after an interruption; to renovate; to rebuild; to repair; to revive; to restore to freshness.” We renew things that are important to us and things that require renewing. Some people choose to renew their wedding vows. On the other hand, we have to renew our driver’s license. What about our most important relationship: the one with the Lord? Does it need renewing? I know mine does from time to time. Sometimes it gets stagnant, or I begin to drift.
Most of us know that Psalm 51 is David’s Psalm of repentance. He is, if you will, renewing his relationship with God. The relationship has been interrupted; it needs repairing. It needs a restoration to freshness. David has sinned with Bathsheeba; has had her husband killed, and in this Psalm is getting right with God after a time of interruption.
For us to renew our relationship with the Lord, we will need to spend time with Him. This whole psalm is a talk that David has with the Lord.
If your relationship needs some freshness, spend some time with Him!
Don’t neglect your daily time with the Lord. We will find ourselves in a mess. David did not wake up one day and decide to commit adultery and then have a man killed. Oh no! Rest assured, this was a gradual process that probably began with him missing his time with the Lord. Don’t miss it.
Everything rests on our daily walk with the Lord. If we are missing our time with Him, we must identify the time wasters and deal with them. Make no mistake, we all have the same amount of time and we are all busy!
I get enamored with folks who think they are the only ones who are busy. However, we make time for the things that are important to us. Make time to read your Bible, do some studying of it, and talk to the Lord daily. If you have no desire for that, find out why. Are you even truly saved? Saved people love the Word! If you are saved and have no desire for the Word, what has taken the desire from you? Get “that” out of your life or in its proper place.
David deals with his transgressions in this psalm.
Psalm 51:1, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.”
If my relationship with the Lord is not what I wish it were, maybe I need to clean up some things.
Maybe there are some things I need to confess and forsake. I must keep a short list with the Lord. I want to be able to talk to Him whenever I want or need to. To have that open line of communication, I must stay clean.
Psalm 66:18, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
Sometimes, we are well aware of our transgressions and have not repented; other times we may have forgotten that the Lord dealt with us over them; then there is the case where we haven’t been dealt with about a particular sin. Whatever the situation, one of the best ways to renew our most important relationship is to keep the transgression list short.
Our treasures (the things that are important to us) need to be the same as God’s.
If my relationship with the Lord needs some freshness restored to it, maybe I should check to see that my treasures are the same as His. A clean heart and a right spirit are what David has asked for; these things were important to the Lord.
Do our treasures line up with His? How important is His Word? How important is assembling with the church family we are a part of? (I’m convinced if church attendance sheets were kept, many people would not believe them when they were handed theirs. They would argue that they didn’t miss that much church…)
How important are His people to us? What about the souls of men? Do we give back to the Lord in tithes and offering? Do you give for your church to be able to support missionaries? Follow the money trail in our checkbooks or banking app to find out what our treasures are. Do we pay more for our cell phones in a month than we give to missions? Is serving important to you? Our service sure is important to Him. Do our treasures line up with His?
To renew my relationship with Jesus, I must renew my thankfulness to Him! Our Lord loves for us to thank Him, to praise Him for His mighty acts and His wonderful works….
Psalm 150:2, “Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.”
Psalm 92:1 tells us it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. He loves thankful people, and we understand that because most of us do too. We don’t mind at all doing things for those who will be thankful!
I don’t know about you, but I want my relationship with the Lord to be fresh!
I want to put the work and effort in to make sure it is in good shape. I want to have my priorities in line and get my time in with Him every day. I want to keep a short list with the Lord, a clean heart, and an open line of communication. I want to make sure my treasures line up with His.
He deserves my thankfulness and praise.