A Clean Heart - Part 2

Are you passionate about life? Are you excited about life? Do you even want to discover what you could do and what you could become?

Does it really make that much difference to you? Are you sort of satisfied where you are? I can tell you this. If you're not living lined up with the will of God, if you have no desire to bring Him glory and honor in your life, listen, you're not satisfied. You may attempt to be satisfied, but there's a big hole, there's a big empty spot there.

You are not going to fill it with anything, whether it is money, praise, position, power, prestige, not anything can fill that place that God has for you. You have this awesome potential. And I see people putting themselves down all the time. Well, you know, if I could and if this and if that and so forth and deep down inside, if they just stop and think, you see, it's one thing to be ignorant for a season of time, but when you hear the truth, you are then responsible. And for every single one of you who is listening from this point on, you're responsible to God.

You're hearing the truth that you're wonderfully, skillfully, awesomely made. And that God has placed within you the potential, the possibility of becoming what He had in mind when you were born before that. What He had in mind when He decided to create you. It's all there if you will allow God to work it out and work it into your life. But the question is, are you willing to line up with the will of God?

Are you willing to say to Him, I want what You want, I want Your will in every aspect of my life? Or have You decided, you know what, you're going to live your life without God. You can live your life without God and I can guarantee you'll end up disappointed, empty, full of discouragement.

And you and I know many, many people out there who've lived their lives and they have all the praise the world has to offer. But when you get behind the praise, without Christ, something big's missing. You will not reach your potential that God has placed within you if you ignore the living God, reject His Son. You may do pretty well in some things. Most people won't do well at all because that's not the way God made us.

He didn't make us to do it on our own. With that in mind, I want us to think about something. And that is simply this. What I want to talk about in this message is a clean heart. Because a clean heart is absolutely essential to reaching your potential.

Now this is the first message. It's more than a clean heart. But this is the first step. You want to reach your potential for God. You want to find out what you can become, what God can do in your life. It begins with a clean heart. And you can't begin any other place because that's where we relate to Him. And when you think about it, you think about the fact, well, okay, so I have to have a clean heart. What does that mean? Well, let's take just a moment to review where we are.

Now watch this. God created you, listen carefully now, God created you skillfully, wonderfully He says, awesomely He's made you. He's placed within you the possibility, the capacity, the potential of becoming everything He had in mind, no matter what that is. Thirdly, He has equipped you adequately in your personality and all the rest. He has equipped you adequately to become and to accomplish and to achieve. Now there are many skills that we have to work out of course, many aspects of our life we have to improve, but that's our responsibility to do that. But all the potential is there.

Not only that, He has done more than that. God sent His Holy Spirit and when you trusted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, the Holy Spirit came into your life. Somebody says, who's the Holy Spirit? He's the person of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the promise of the Father and the gift to every single believer. So all of us who are children of God have within us the Holy Spirit. What is His responsibility? To enable us in every single aspect of our life, listen, to achieve and to become what God has in mind for us.

So what I want you to see is this, it isn't just your effort. You have been indwelt by a person of the Godhead, by God Himself indwelling you to do what? To release within you that potential, that possibility to make your potential and your possibility a reality.

So somebody says, but I can't this and I can't that. Remember who's living on the inside of you. Remember who has the awesome power to release and to guide you and to show you the way, to line you up with the will of the Father. You have been indwelling you the awesome power of the Holy Spirit. Now He functions and He acts and He works in the heart of the believer. But He only works in the heart of a believer whose heart is clean.

Now listen carefully. The Bible speaks about quenching the Spirit, that's stifling His work in your life. The Bible speaks about grieving the Spirit.

You can only grieve someone who loves you. You grieve the Spirit by sinning against Him. So that if you and I are going to reach our potential, if we're going to become the persons God wants us to be, if we're going to discover just what God could possibly do in our lives, what He could achieve in us and through us, the persons He could make of us, then listen, we must allow the Spirit of God within us to listen, to be released and live in such a way that He is released to do what? To empower us to become and to achieve. Now what's required of us? A clean heart.

Now here's the big question. What makes a clean heart? Well, I want you to turn, if you will, to Ephesians chapter five. Look in Ephesians chapter five. Very interesting what Paul says here, talking about marriage and relationships and so forth.

And listen what he says. He talked about the husband sanctifying his wife. He says, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, with the Word of God. Now, I want to take you through two or three passages of Scripture because you see, if I'm going to reach my potential, my heart's got to be clean. And when we talk about clean, we talk about, listen, the pursuit of a clean heart. Now to pursue something means that I seek after it, that I work after it. And that is, I set my mind, it's a priority. Now watch this carefully. You don't want to miss this because it'd be easy for you to miss this. Oh, well, well, well, well.

Now watch this. Reading the Scriptures one thing, I want you to see something deeper than that. The living Word of God has been given to us as an instruction book.

It is also a book that has been given us. It's the living Word of God to keep us clean. The washing of the Word of God. If we're going to reach our potential, if we're going to discover what our possibilities are, the Spirit of God works in a clean heart. And therefore, you and I must maintain a clean heart. That is, we must maintain it by our confession and our repentance toward God.

But what I want you to see, the most important thing is this. It's the living Word of God. That's what exposes to me my wrong thinking or my wrongdoing.

That's how the washing takes place. As the Word of God speaks to my heart, what happens? The result is my confession and my repentance of it.

It's the washing of the Word. Now I want you to look at, I want us to look at several passages of Scripture here that have to deal with that. And in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 8, for example, there's a phrase here I want you to notice. 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 8, and here's what he says. He says, for they stumble because they're disobedient to the Word. That is, the dirt gets in our life because we're disobedient to the Word of God.

So if I want to stay clean, listen, I need to stay in the Word of God. I want you to turn over to Proverbs chapter 4 for a moment. And Proverbs chapter 4, and look if you will in verse 23. Proverbs chapter 4 verse 23, listen to what this text says. He says, watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life.

What is he saying? He's saying watch over your heart that is maintain a clean heart. Be careful because remember he says, he says out of the springs life, it's out of our heart, our thoughts, our ideas, our emotions, our feelings, our intentions in life, our motivations.

He said, keep your heart, watch over it, maintain it with all diligence. That means we have to work at it. We can't take it for granted.

We can't be careless about it. And so God's Word has to be an absolute vital part of our life. Go back to the hundred and nineteenth Psalm and let's look if you will in verse one hundred and five. That's a big long psalm. Look in verse one oh five. He says, your Word that is the Word of God is the lamp to my feet.

That means it opens the way, it shows me the way where I'm to walk and a light to my path. That is the Word of God is the lamp and the light. That, you see, the lamp, the light goes before me and when I read the Scriptures I know what to do next.

I know what to avoid. Go back, same psalm, go all the way back to the eleventh verse and I want you to watch this. Eleventh verse of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm. It's Bibles like a cake of soap. You begin to read it, God's going to clean up your life.

Listen to what happens. Eleventh verse says, now watch this, your Word I have treasured in my heart that I may not sin against you. Now notice what he said, he didn't say your Word have I read.

It's not enough to read it. Treasured in my heart. He's saying, listen, the absorption of God's Word, reading it, taking it in, the application of God's heart does what? Keeps me from sinning against God. And when I do sin against God, it exposes that sin. And then that's what reminds me of confession and repentance. The cleansing process takes place. The Spirit of God is free.

What happens is when that becomes a process in your life, what you're doing is you're maintaining a clean heart. Your Word I have treasured in my heart that I may not sin against you. Now go back, if you will, to the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm. Now I want you to look at a couple of verses here. Back to the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm and the last couple of verses in this Psalm. He says, search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. You see, that's what happens when you and I begin to listen, to allow the Word of God to make its application in our heart.

It shows us what's there that ought not to be. It brings us to this Spirit, search me, O God. How does He search us with His Word? Know my heart.

Try me. Know my anxious thoughts. That is, show me how to lay my life before Your Word and see if it matches up to the Word. See if there be any hurtful way in me, and then lead me in the everlasting way.

Line me up with Your will so that my life will bring You glory and honor. Lying within you is all that possibility, all that potentiality that God has placed within you. Because you see, He knows exactly what you could become. He knows exactly what He's made you possibly, listen, to achieve in life. And the question is, do you want to know?

If you want to know, you want to discover that, then the first thing you have to do is get your heart cleaned up. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. Surrender your life to the living Lord Jesus Christ. And tell Him that you want to be obedient to Him, and you trust the Holy Spirit to live within you. Listen, to enable you, you can't live it yourself.

We all know that. It is relying upon Him, depending upon Him. What will He do? He will show us the wrong way, and He'll show us the right way. He will enable us and strengthen us. He will give us the skills and abilities and talents that we need. We're already lying there, capable of becoming and doing what God has in mind.

The question is, do you care enough? Do you want to discover that? Do you want to be the person God wants you to be? Do you want to line up with His will? Do you want to bring in glory and honor in your life? Are you willing, listen, are you willing to take the risk of surrendering your life to Jesus Christ and allowing the Holy Spirit to begin, to unfold in you, change you, release in you, demonstrate to you, show you all that you're capable of becoming and doing?

If you're willing to line up with the will of God, that's exactly what He's willing to do. Where does it begin? Getting cleaned up. The cleansing of the heart. Thou word of thy treasure in my heart that I may not sin against you.

Why? Because God knows and all through the Word we can look at passage after passage after passage. What's God talking about? Walking obediently before Him. Living a holy life.

Maintaining a clean, pure heart. What did Jesus say? Blessed are the pure in heart. They're the ones who will see God. Blessed are the pure in heart because listen, watch this, it isn't only we'll see God when we get to heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart who will see God at work in their life.

Every single day. Listen, He's not reserved that to one of these days we die and go to heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart. Those who maintain a clean heart, they shall see God today in this situation, that circumstance, in this relationship, in that job, in this pleasure, in this hobby, in this habit, whatever it may be.

Blessed are the pure in heart. They shall see God. That is you will experience, you will see the hand of God. You'll experience God working in your life, bringing your potential to reality, bringing the possibilities to actuality in your life. That's what He's willing to do.

That's what He desires. That's why He created you. Wonderfully, skillfully, awesomely created you. Now do you want to end up your life saying, if I'd have, if I'd have just listened, if I had, if I'd have just applied what I heard, if I'd have listened, if I'd have that, or do you want to one day end up your life and look back in absolute amazement and think, oh God, I would never have believed You brought me through that. My God, I'm amazed that You, that You enabled me to do that. I'm amazed that You worked this in my life. I'm amazed, God, what You did over here.

Or do you want to end up saying, if I'd have, oh God, if I'd have this and if I'd have that. It's a choice we make. And you see, none of us can take credit for anything. It's the work of God in our hearts. He's the one who created you wonderfully, skillfully, awesomely. He's the one who put that capacity within you, all of your potential, all of your possibility lying within you, ready to be released moment by moment, day after day, year after year, growing in your relationship to Him. Listen, you discovering what He's able to do in your life, if you don't like who you are, you don't like where you are, you don't like what you think about yourself, the wisest thing you can do is to place your trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

Tell Him you're surrendering your life to Him today at this very moment and you're trusting that the Holy Spirit whom He promised will now indwell you and from this moment on, you want Him to have absolute free sway in your life. Whatever He does is fine with you. And you know what?

You're going to discover that whatever He does in your life is better than fine. That's the choice. And I guess if there's one thing that grieves my heart is to see people that I can see with my very short-sighted vision who have such potential, such possibilities, wasting away their life.

Watch this. On the world's frills, wasting away fantastic talent and ability and skills in ways that bring them the world's honor, but not God's. That's not the way you want to live. That's not the way you want to end up.

But it's a choice you make. You end up with the awesome approval of the Lord Jesus Christ or you end up with ashes and eternal separation from God. God grants you the wisdom, my friend, to choose right now to tell the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ. No more this half-hearted living. I'm laying aside this carnal life.

I'm tired of just doing pretty good. I'm tired of excusing my sinfulness, my disobedience. Today, I lay it all down because I want to find out just what God had in mind the moment He created me. Thank you for listening to part two of A Clean Heart. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.