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Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. The apostle Paul taught believers to give their bodies-including their hands-to God as “a living and holy sacrifice-the kind he will find acceptable. We purify our hearts through the inward renewal of the mind and spirit (Psalm 51:10). We cleanse our hands by removing them from sinful pursuits and moral compromises and then seeking God’s forgiveness. We get our hands dirty when we play in the world’s sandbox. God had issued a similar order through the prophet Isaiah: “Wash yourselves. James’ charge to “cleanse your hands” focused more on the people’s worldly actions and outward deeds. James may have also had these words of King David in mind: “Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god” (Psalm 24:3–4). It shall be a statute forever to them, even to him and to his offspring throughout their generations” (Exodus 30:21, ESV). Whenever the priests entered the wilderness tabernacle and approached the altar to minister to the Lord, they were required to cleanse their hands and feet with water from the bronze basin: “They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die. James’ use of the phrase cleanse your hands linked his command in a spiritual and moral sense to the language of the ancient Jewish ceremonial rituals of worship. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (James 4:8, ESV). He beckoned his readers to repent from their sinful ways and return to the Lord: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Find out more about her here.James observed a widespread problem of worldliness infiltrating the lives of Christians in the early church. Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Olga_GavrilovaĬandice Lucey is a freelance writer from British Columbia, Canada, where she lives with her family. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and restore a steadfast spirit within me.
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Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. A Psalm 51 Prayer for a Clean Heartīe gracious to me, O God, according to Your loving kindness according to the greatness of Your compassion, blot out my transgressions. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” ( Ezekiel 36:26). “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. What he, and all of us, actually need is a transplant. He desires to have his heart’s compass recalibrated so that North points to whatever delights the Almighty. This heart is not totally free of sin but longs to see God to love and to obey him.Īnd this is the purity of heart, which David longs for. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God” ( Matthew 5:8). By his wounds you have been healed” ( 1 Peter 2:24). “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. We can approach him without pure hearts desirous of purity because the Lord views believers through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ his pure sacrifice. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” ( Jeremiah 29:13). The Lord can change anyone, but Christians must turn to God and ask for a change to take place. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” ( 2 Peter 3:9). On the other hand, by the grace of God we can desire it can come to God seeking his new mercies every day ( Lamentations 3:22-23). What keeps us from God is real sin echoing in a condemning conscience.”
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John Piper explains, “We know that what keeps us away from God is not dirty hands or soiled clothes or distance from an altar or a priest.