Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Junk mail -- those annoying letters that fill your mail box. Along with the junk comes the delightful bills, and renewal notices. Of course the junk, we can just throw away, the bills, unfortunately can't be ignored, but the renewal notices, those we're thankful to see. Without them, we'd likely forget that we need to renew our licenses, our credit cards, membership cards, whatever else. Without those renewal notices, we might go to the ATM one day and not be able to get the cash we need because our card is expired -- oops! We might be asked to show our identification and the authorities might say, "Sorry Charlie, this license is not valid - you didn't renew it!"
Sadly though, the most important things in life that need renewing, do not come with renewal notices. We will never open a piece of mail and see a notice to renew our love for our spouses, our children or our friends. But if we don't continually renew our love for them, it will eventually grow cold. We'll also never receive the most important renewal notice -- to remind us to renew our relationship with God. Our relationship with God is the most important relationship we can have. It must be renewed daily!
In Hebrew, the word "le-cha-desh" means to renew. Here you go. Here is your renewal notice. Renew your love for the ones you love today. Renew your love for the Lord. Renew your love for the things of God and for his calling upon your lives.
We all need a little renewing today. Let's ask the Lord to create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us. There is so much work to be done!
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This is a story relayed by Corrie Ten Boom, “It was Christmas, 1944. My sister, Betsie, had died. I was in a hospital barracks in Ravensbruck, a Nazi prison camp. Dark it was in my heart, and darkness was around me. There were Christmas trees in the street between the barracks. Dead bodies of prisoners had been thrown under the Christmas trees. I tried to talk to the people around me about Christmas, but they mocked and sneered. At last I kept quiet.