During 2025, Peachtree Church is focusing on the Book of Psalms with a series called Dwell, through which we seek to deepen our conversation with God and open ourselves to hearing his response. The practice of praying three times each day will unite the voices of our hearts and souls as we seek the day when we will see the full realization of the Kingdom of God, promised in Revelation 21:3: “…Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
We will email devotionals twice weekly with Monday’s providing an overview of the Psalm as a whole, and Wednesday’s focused on that week’s Daily Dwell.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10
Devotional
When I was younger, I went through a phase where I had an obsession with ancient Egyptian culture. I studied the hieroglyphics, I read age-appropriate books on Egyptian mythology, and I learned as much as I could about the process of mummification. In that latter study, I remember finding it so interesting that the Egyptians believed the heart was the physical connection point between the body, the mind, and the soul (even to the extreme that they understood the brain as being of little value), which meant that during mummification, the heart of the deceased would be removed, sealed into a canopic jar, and placed within the sarcophagus because of its importance.
I write those words simply as a reminder about the importance of heart health (and I do not mean taking the time to schedule our annual physicals and possibly cardiologist appointments). The reality of the world in which we live is that our hearts can often become jaded—or, to use the phrasing that is found throughout the Bible, our hearts can be turned to stone. This transition seldom occurs without warning signs; we gradually experience moments where we stop feeling concern—when we cease to see the people around us in light of the love that God desires for us to have for them. Our hearts need to be made new.
King David saw how far he had fallen. He saw that his one mistake had grown to a massive one, and as his sin had grown, his heart had become one that cared more about covering up his initial transgression than about the life of another person—even another person whom Scripture describes as one of David’s elite leaders among his troops. He saw that he needed a new heart, but he also understood that he could not create one on his own. Rather, he needed God to create in him a pure heart, a new heart, a heart that was not tarnished by the weight of everything that he had done.
The hard truth is that we all need for God to do the same for each of us. While each of us has our own sin (and one of my prayers is that none of us ever find ourselves in the same position that David was in), we all do need for the Lord to take our hardened, tarnished, and uncaring hearts and remake them as they were first intended to be. It’s not a hard process for Him, but we have to take the first step by admitting our wrongdoing and asking for forgiveness.
For Reflection
- What parts of your life are the ones where you can most easily see the hardness of your own heart?
- How might you respond to God’s forgiveness in ways that will help keep you from having these same places tarnish your heart anew?
Prayer
Lord God, your desire for each of us is that our hearts would be made pure. While we can know this, it is difficult for us to step before you with the vulnerability needed to admit it to you. Help us to seek you to remake our hearts, and when we struggle to do so, help us to want to seek you to do so. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.
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