John MacNeil of Australia

Again, we grieve the Spirit by failing to keep our hearts clean. The
late John MacNeil of Australia said that a new heart is not necessarily
a clean heart; but many of us have been thinking that it was. David
committed a great transgression, and was pardoned, and prayed:
"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within
me." Paul says: "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

MacNeil uses the illustration of a mother who puts a clean dress on her
child in the morning, and tells her to keep it unspotted all day long.
When night comes, the child's dress is so soiled that it is hard to tell
whether it is white or black; but the mother cleanses it. The child had
the will to keep it clean, but the nature of the child made her get it
soiled. The same thing takes place every day, but if that mother could
only impart some of her own spirit to that child, so that the child
would not only have the will but the ability to keep clean, would not
that be wonderful? That is exactly what God wants to do for us. He
wants to put Himself in us, and while we have the old nature of the
flesh, He wants to give us, in all its fulness, His own blessed nature, to
keep us free from sin.

Some say that is perfection. Well, what of it? As an old minister once
said to me, "I wish that people were as much afraid of imperfection as
of perfection." But we may forsake every known sin, and still be very
imperfect in God's sight, for God may behold sin where we would be
blind to it. It is not a question as to whether I can keep from sinning or
not — I know that I cannot, for I have tried it many years; but the
question is as to whether Jesus Christ can keep me. Who am I that I
should limit the power of the Almighty? He is able to save unto the
uttermost. Has He not told us in Jude that He is able to keep us from
stumbling? Is anything too hard for the Lord?