Remember that song or remember that Psalm?
Psalm 51:10-12 10Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
11Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 12Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.
Many different Christian singers have sung it. One of those was Keith Green. I remember singing it around the campfire at camp as a kid.
When you’re a kid you realize a clean heart is a good thing, but were unaware that aside from God it’s really impossible. You think that there are good people and not so good people. As you get older you realize that upon inspection were all messed up. The question is, “How Much?”
We need to be in touch with the Holy Spirit and constantly reading God’s Word.
1 Corinthians 2:12-14 – 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So the clean heart comes not from any human wisdom, but from the Spirit of God. One of the most important things to working on a clean heart is to realize you are not going to do it without God.
A clean heart is achieved by less you, more Him. Not me, He. To get the renewed Spirit we need to seek Holiness and God.