In Psalms 51:10 we read, “Create in me a clean heart O Elohim…” The word create here is the same as used in Genesis/B’reshith 1:1 “In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth.” So, we might assume that all Yah needs to do to create this cleanness in us is to speak His Word or use a scripture verse to change some aspect of our weakness before Him.
Create in Hebrew, as used here, is Bara – to shape or form. Gesenius’ Hebrew Chaldee Lexicon defines the word more specifically, “to cut, carve out, form by cutting.” OUCH! To be genuinely changed and become clean in our heart, we need surgery, precision cutting by the Ruach haKodesh/Holy Spirit, applying the Word of Yah. This means inscribing the Torah INTO our hearts, not merely ONTO them. The process is that of cutting away flesh-oriented thinking, leaving an inscribed or even chiseled writing of the Word, so that it becomes one with us, unremovable and permanent.
We need to do more than feel better about ourselves, turning over a new leaf, or getting a fresh start. We must be willing to go under the Ruach’s knife and be forever changed.
Barry Phillips
BYNA Elder Chair
