God Wants Your Heart
By Robbie SymonsDecember 21, 2021
Before any great work of God in the history of the church, there has been genuine confession and repentance. Before the Lord works, he finds a heart that is broken and contrite before him. Repentance cultivates the soil of our hearts. Only repentance can produce the beauty that we so long to see in the fruit of our lives. Repentance throws pride in the garbage and ushers in a brokenness that is irresistible to the Holy Spirit. Repentance prepares the heart to be cleansed.
Repentance is not guilt and shame, it is the call to be freed from guilt and shame into the joy that the Lord has for us. To know God’s joy and His freedom, His love and power, the people of God must understand the power, the beauty and the blessing of the call to repentance. The heart that is cleansed is the heart that knows joy.
Psalm 51 and the Root of Joylessness
In Psalm 51, we see a picture of David repenting before the Lord. David has sinned against others but pinpoints his main problem: he has sinned against God. That’s the root of the problem. We want the fruit of repentance, but too often we have not repented the root of our sin—we need a clean heart. The path back to a fervent love for God always starts with the heart.
David understands this. He cries out in verse 10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” As David knows this, who alone can take a heart of stone and cause it to become a heart of flesh? Who can change the leper’s spots and melt the heart of stone? Who can take a wretched heart of sin and cause it to become a heart of righteousness? There’s only one who can change the heart—only God. David knows his sins are against God, and so he confesses them wholly and honestly.