Charles Wesley wrote this hymn in the years immediately following his disastrous mission trip to America in 1735, his subsequent illness upon his return, and then the unbridled enthusiasm of his conversion on Pentecost Sunday, May 21, 1738. It was introduced in the book Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1742, published by John Wesley, originally with eight stanzas. The scriptural basis was Psalm 51:10, thus the heading to the hymn, “Make me a Clean Heart, O GOD, and renew a right Spirit within me.” Thirty-eight years later, the eight-stanza hymn was included in a slightly altered form in the monumental Wesley hymnal, A Collection of Hymns: For the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780) under the category “For Believers Groaning for Full Redemption.”¹ As soon as I read the words to this hymn, I felt I could immediately resonate with the plea for a clean heart, and maybe you do too. Use these words as your prayer today. Enjoy this song version!

O for a heart to praise my God, 
A heart from sin set free,
A heart that always feels thy blood
So freely shed for me. 

A heart resigned, submissive, meek,
My great Redeemer’s throne, 
Where only Christ is heard to speak, 
Where Jesus reigns alone. 

A humble, lowly, contrite heart, 
Believing, true, and clean, 
Which neither life nor death can part 
From Christ who dwells within. 

A heart in every thought renewed 
And full of love divine, 
Perfect and right and pure and good, 
A copy, Lord, of thine. 

Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart;
Come quickly from above;
Write thy new name upon my heart,
Thy new, best name of Love.

¹umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-wesley-hymn-speaks-language-of-the-heart