Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free Spirit. – Psalm 51:10-12
The Lord has been speaking to me that this is a prayer for the modern Church, a prayer that paves the way for Awakening.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. – If we are to see a massive move of God, a keen awareness of personal sin and a sincere determination to turn from it are required. Psalm 34:18 says, “The LORD is near those who are broken in heart, and saves those who have a contrite spirit.” “Contrite” means “thoroughly sorrowful over sin.” God eagerly answers repentant prayer and restores a clean heart within us. It is not possible to have a right spirit inside without such repentance.
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. – A full casting away from His Presence, for the once-believer, is final judgment for rejecting Jesus. But God does lift His Presence from His own, so that He no longer hovers closely over them, through their refusal to listen and obey. It is about having, or not having, His anointing.
Samson, the man of God, toyed with sin on a regular basis. His compromise probably started out small. Compromise usually does. He came to a point of thinking, “I will go out as before and shake myself” (speaking of using his supernatural strength) “and he did not perceive that the LORD had departed from him” (Judges 16:20). May God help those of us who are in compromise to turn from it before we come to the place of losing the anointing and not even realizing it!
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free Spirit. – The joy of salvation should not be confined to personal enjoyment of eternal life and relationship with Jesus. Genuine joy over salvation will produce an uncontainable urge to tell others the good news so that they can know Jesus too. God wants His Church so re-filled and re-empowered by His Spirit that we cannot help but pour out the gospel to those around us.
Lord, light the fire again!
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