Throughout the Bible, we’re reminded that our hearts are important. The things that fill our hearts are the things that come out of us. That’s why the Bible says ‘Guard your heart…for it determines the course of your life.’ If we want to be overflowing with godly things, then we need to make sure that our hearts are pure, and focused on God. When our hearts are pursuing the wrong things, we can be led down the wrong path, and end up walking away from God and believing the lies of the enemy because we’re not keeping God’s truth in our hearts. When we clean our houses, we go through and remove the rubbish and dirt which has built up. And we need to do that in our hearts too. When we’ve collected hurts, bad habits, and lies in our hearts, they need to be cleaned and made pure. Cleaning out our hearts can sound like an overwhelming task, especially if we know that there’s quite a lot that needs to be removed. But David prayed, ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me’ (Psalm 51:10 NIV). We can pray this too, and God will help us have a pure heart. Sometimes we can get to the point where we’ve been so hurt, become so bitter, or have gone so far away from the things that God wants for us, that we have become hard-hearted. But even then there is hope. When the Israelites had gone away from God, He said: ‘I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh’ (Ezekiel 11:19 NIV). And He can do that for us too.

What Now?

Draw a picture of a heart. Inside write down all the things that are filling your heart right now, good and bad. Then ask God to help you clean out the parts that need to be removed.