“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore me to the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” Psalm 51:10-12

Today I preach about God’s work in an “unclean” gentile who is afflicted with a skin disease. He is unclean by faith, by disease and because he is an enemy of and has fought against Israel. Yet, God heals him. God removes the leprosy, God cleans his heart and God puts, within this general, a new and right spirit. I can hear Naaman crying out, repeating the words from the verses above. Over and over, he will pray these words as he returns to Damascus, an unclean city, where he will serve his unclean king. Because now he knows there is but one true God who heals, restores and redeems! O God that I always remember, that I turn to you, the only One able to clean hearts and insert new and right spirits, the only One who provides salvation and whose Spirit empowers. Thanks be to God!