TRUE PRAYER
PSALM 51:10
A. "CREATE IN ME A CLEAN HEART, O GOD; AND RENEW A RIGHT SPIRIT WITHIN ME" PSALM 51:10
1. The prayer of David:
a. This prayer should be the ideal for every living Christian.
b. The desires for holiness should be the longing of every living Christian.
c. God is always willing to answers the prayers of those who thirst and hunger after righteousness.
2. That type of prayer:
a. Inspired in our minds the desires to reach a higher ground.
b. This is not desires to posses’ worldly gain or materials things that corrupts, but a desire to be pure and holy before our God.
c. When we prayed this way we recognized that the God we worship is Holy and Truth.
d. We recognize our feebleness when we come before him.
e. We recognize his mighty power to read the mind, and search the deeper thing of the heart.
f. That type of prayers brings us a sense of belonging to a God who is The Holy of Hollies, and His ability and power to sanctify those who approach Him.
B. WHAT IS TRUE PRAYER AS REVEALED IN OUR OPENING TEXT?
1. True prayer:
a. The prayer that comes from the God of the Spirit is the only prayer that can lead us to Him.
b. This prayer is truth because forgiveness of sins and pardon has already been assured.
c. The earnest desires of the heart to be clean and the calling for an upright Spirit is the assurance that he wants to live in obedience to him who has just forgiven Him.
d. He does not rejoice in sin, he wants to be pure of heart and upright in spirit.
e. He knows that he does not belong to the kingdom of this world; he desires the communication with the angels above, and the love of the Father and Son.
f. He recognized that he was in the world, yet he does not belong to the world.
2. He was assured that pardon has been given to him:
a. "I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." - Ps. 32:5
b. He longed to be complete in Him, who has the power to keeps us from all unrighteousness –
c. "KJV Ephesians 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;”
d. He knows that this renewing does not comes from works of righteousness that he have done –
e. KJV Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
f. That is the act of God, base upon His justice and not our works - Col. 3:10
g. God is the one who do the washing in us as well as the renewing of the spirit; it is His work and not us.
h. That work constitutes a new creation - the new birth - John 3:3-9; 2 Cor. 5:1
3. Let our prayers proclaim His promises to us:
a. All of God’s promises have been given to us, when we prayed we have to proclaim his promises so that our faith can increase by the power of the Word of God.
b. Note what the Bible says about true prayer, "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that please him" - 1 John 3:22;
c. "And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us." - I John 5:14
d. What God delights in is "a broken and contrite heart" - verse 17.
e. We can not look to ourselves, we have to remember God’s promises and command –
f. Without our willingness to give our sins to Him who carry it on the Cross, we won’t be able to be clean - Ezek. 18:31
g. But when we earnestly desires on our heart to be clean, and confess our sins to Him, then we learn that God does it all for us - Ezek. 36:26
C. THIS PRAYER IMPLIES TWO IMPORTANT EXPERIENCES IN OUR DAILY WALK WITH GOD
1. Learning to die daily to self:
a. One of the hardest thing the human mind can’t accomplished is dying daily to the desires of the flesh.
b. But dying daily is one of the greatest victories that we as human can obtain from sins.
c. It happen through out the Word of God Moses in the dessert for forty years –
d. John the Baptist’s diet -
e. Samson’s Nazarenes rites, it diet and way of living -
f. Christ Himself begin his ministry fasting in the dessert
g. A part of self-surrender is yielding; Examples: Note how the Son of man yielded to take the cup His Father had for Him - Luke 22:42 - "Nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done"
h. Said penitent Saul, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" - Acts 9:6
i. But the law of life requires that we must be brought low before we are raised up. Said the Lord to King Saul, "When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee King of Israel" – I Sam. 15:17
j. We must, indeed, be emptied of self before we can be filled with all the fullness of God - Eph. 3:19
k. We need to let go of the old wineskins and prepared our heart for the Lord to fill us with the new wine of Salvation that is to go to the whole world – Revelation 14:6-12
2. True prayer, finally leads us to a new life of love and obedience:
a. The obedience part has already been prepared by our loving Father in Christ Jesus - "For we are His Workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" - Eph. 2:10
b. “KJV Revelation 22:14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
c. Asking God for a clean heart is asking him to make us willing to obey and walks in his footsteps - 1 John 2:4-7
3. "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me”
a. Let that be our prayers; let us with the apostles Paul die daily in prayers with the Lord so that He can give us the strength we need to endures in the time of trouble.
b. For God is willing to do in you more abundantly than what you yourself can think of.
c. This is my prayers in Christ Jesus!
