Psalm 51:10–13 (NIV)
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners will turn back to You.

David was a king who had lost the presence of God and yet he had such a wonderful ability to be accurate in his repentance. David was the only true example in the Old Testament of prophet, priest and king; he did fulfil the three rolls. We need to take a look at his spirit.

When he knew that God's presence was off him he didn't start blaming anybody else, he immediately started to deal with himself. He didn't blame shift. It is an amazing thing that as you study David's life as a man and see his spirit and see his character develop and you walk with him and talk with him, so to speak, you find that he was a man that was in the presence of God. You can see what was so contagious about his love amongst other people and God loved him so much because of that and also because of his submission to Him.

When was David going to be a priest and offer up the heathen as a sacrifice as he said in verse 13? When his own spirit was cleansed, when his own spirit was right. Isn't that powerful? He had realized that he had sinned against God and not just against men and he dealt with his inner man very powerfully.

All too often I have walked into a meeting and I've seen people work under the giftings of the word of knowledge but the presence hasn't been there. See David discerned the difference between the two. That presence is the illumination. We have to know when we are losing the presence because of sin that we haven't washed away by the blood of Jesus. We know we haven't cleansed our spiritual ways, when we are being self seeking, selfish, bitter and hurtful to others. It is good to clean up the outside but the Lord says for us to clean up the inside first.
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