After We Fail - What Then?

“Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me to hear joy and gladness,
Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins
And blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
And sustain me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners will be converted to You.”  Psalm 51:7-13

What then? Repent - Pray - Confess - Ask - Believe.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). From his monumental sacred writings entitled The Treasury of David, Charles H. Spurgeon reflected on David’s Psalm 51.

“Create! Has sin so destroyed us that the Creator must be called in again? What ruin then doth evil work among mankind!

Create in me. I, in outward fabric, still exist; but I am empty. Come then, and let thy power be seen in a new creation within my old fallen self.

A clean heart. In the seventh verse he asked to be clean; now he seeks a heart suitable to that cleanliness; but he does not say, ‘make my old heart clean;’ he is too experienced in the hopelessness of the old nature. He would have the old man buried as a dead thing, and a new creation brought in to fill its place. None but God can create a new heart or a new earth.

The affections must be rectified first, or all our nature will go amiss. The heart is the rudder of the soul, and till the Lord take it in hand we steer in a false and foul way.

Renew a right spirit within me. It was there once, Lord, put it there again. The law on my heart has become like an inscription hard to read: write it new, gracious Maker. Remove the evil as I have entreated thee; but, O replace it with (thy) good!”

“Create in me...” - “Renew a steadfast spirit within me...”
- Prayers that can set a new course.