9 Prayers for Purity

Did you know that only those with pure hearts can ascend to the hill of the Lord–in other words, can truly be close to God? It’s true. And for this reason, purity is something for which we should all labor, pray, and seek. To help you, I wrote the 9 prayers for purity below: one-sentence prayers that will change your life.

Let’s first look at Psalm 24 and what it says about having clean hands and a pure heart.

Psalm 24:3-5 says this:

“Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive blessing from the Lord,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalm 24:3-5 NKJV).

The Bible teaches us that the only people who can truly be close to God are those who have clean hands and a pure heart, who have not lifted up their soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully. Of course, when we first give our lives to Jesus, we may be far from meeting this standard. God makes us righteous the moment we give our lives to Jesus; righteousness becomes our identity and our DNA.

As the Lord tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:21:

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV).

You become the righteousness of God in Christ the moment you give your heart to Jesus, making Him your Lord and Savior.

However, it takes time for the fruit of our lives to line up with that righteousness. It takes time for what we do to become consistent with who we are in Christ.

Growing and maturing in Jesus is a process. But the good news is that the process can go as fast or as slow as you want. It’s all about the amount of effort you put in.

For example:

• People who labor to hide God’s Word in their heart will grow faster than people who don’t read, study, memorize, and meditate on the Word. The Word keeps people from sinning, so hiding it in your heart is the best thing you can do.
• People who spend focused time in prayer grow faster than those who don’t.
• People who pray over their character–praying to become more like Jesus–grow and mature faster than people who only pray for stuff (i.e. praying for their daily, material needs to be met). Stuff is important too, but character is more important.
• People who fast and pray will grow exponentially faster than those who don’t.
• People who spend time in worship, enjoying the glory of God and pouring out your adoration to Him, will grow faster than those who don’t bother.
• People who attend church and find a good small group to be part of (whether in church or just a community of Christian friends with whom they meet regularly) grow faster than those who don’t.
• People who crucify their flesh by giving financially to God, returning His tithe to Him and giving Him offerings, grow faster than those who don’t. Financial giving is strictly a matter of obeying God’s written Word, so doing so helps people grow.

It’s all about how much effort you put into it. But, the effort doesn’t have to be difficult or painful.

In fact, there is no greater joy than seeking God. In His presence is fullness of joy! The presence of God is the only place where life truly becomes beautiful; where wrong things are made right; and where you can see with Spirit eyes.

As we read in Psalm 16:11:

“You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11 NKJV).

Seeking God is the most enjoyable thing you could ever do. Seeking God brings more joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment than any lust of the flesh, any worldly activity, or any other entertainment ever could.

Seeking God and experiencing Him in intimate encounters–in which you experience His manifest presence and you are washed in His love–is the ultimate fulfillment and joy. It’s not hard or a chore or anything painful. Investing your time in seeking God is the greatest pleasure on earth.

And along the journey of seeking God, it’s helpful to memorize some easy, one-sentence prayers you can pray for the things that are most important to God.

That’s why we are providing this prayer guide; these 9 one-sentence prayers for purity are tools you can use to pray for the most important things in life. Purity is one of those most important things. The purity that comes with having clean hands and a pure heart is the same purity that allows you to ascend to the hill of the Lord, covered with the blood of Jesus, and be with Him in the closest relationship possible.

So don’t wait any longer; read the 9 prayers for purity below. Pray them, memorize them, and implore the Lord for these 9 things daily.

Also, please print the infographic that is below at the end of this article. Tape it to your mirror; put it in your Bible; tape it to the dash of your car; pin it to the walls of your cubicle at work. Just pray these 9 prayers often–daily, even!–and you will see God move in your life, in your heart, and in your relationship with Him.

Prayer 1: Search me, O God, and know my heart!

This prayer comes from Psalm 139:23-24, which says:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24 NKJV).

The fact is that only God knows our heart. We do not even know our own heart. The Bible says:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NKJV).

Therefore, none of us have the privilege of walking around saying, “I know my own heart.” No, you don’t. Nobody does except for God. THAT is why we need the Lord to search us, try us, and lead us in the CORRECT and holy way. We cannot ever trust our heart; we can only trust God and His Word.

So remember this simple prayer and pray it daily:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

When I pray this prayer, I always add my own heart cry–“and if there is, get it out!”–when I ask the Lord to “see if there is any wicked way in me.” You can do that too, if you want to. But either way, cry out to God to search your heart and lead you in His way, keeping you in HIS paths, daily.

Prayer 2: Keep me from sinning against You.

We read about this prayer in Hebrews 5:7. It’s a prayer that Jesus must have prayed; a prayer that helped Him obey the Father without ever sinning in His whole life!

Read this passage, knowing that it talks about Jesus:

“who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear” (Hebrews 5:7).

For a detailed explanation of this passage and how it applies to Jesus, read this article and detailed prayer here. But for you and me, every day, we can pray this simple prayer and ask the Lord to keep us on His straight and narrow path. These things are not too difficult for God; He gives us His grace to help us live holy lives.

Yes, you can live grace-conscious, not sin-conscious.

And you don’t have to go around sinning every day; the Bible says that you can absolutely live without sinning again, after you’ve given your heart to Jesus and repented for your sins. Do we do that? Not necessarily. But we can; it is possible through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Read 1 John 3:4-6:

“Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him” (1 John 3:4-6 NKJV).

And then look at 1 John 3:9:

“Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9 NKJV).

So yes, friend, you can live without sinning.

You can become so close to Jesus that you just obey Him and abide in Him, all day every day. And if you will ask the Lord to keep you from sinning against Him, He will help you do just that.

Prayer 3: Help me to hide Your Word in my heart.

God’s Word will keep you from sinning if you hide it in your heart. The Word–also known as the Bible–changes you. When you read it, absorb it, think about it, pray through it, and meditate on it (chewing on it as a cow chews its cud), the Word becomes part of you. And the Lord uses His Word to work out His perfection in you.

Psalm 119 says:

“Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11 NKJV).

If you want to be pure, hide God’s Word in your heart.

Memorize it; study it; mark notes and thoughts and prayers in your Bible. Think about each verse and pray through it as you read it. God’s Word will transform your life. God’s Word is how you “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” as it says in Romans 12:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:1-2 NKJV).

God’s Word is the most powerful, life-changing force in the universe. And whatever you put into yourself will be what comes out of you. If you let garbage enter your eye-gate, ear-gate, and heart-gate, your life will produce garbage in return. You reap what you sow. Garbage in, garbage out.

On the other hand, if you put God’s Word into yourself, the Word will be what comes out of you. Instead of “garbage in, garbage out,” you will get “Word of God in, Word of God out.”

So go ahead and pray: “Lord, help me to hide Your Word in my heart.”

And then get started. Even if you only have the capacity to read one or two verses every day, read those one or two verses and ask God to increase your capacity for prayer and for His Word. That’s what I did when I first gave my heart to Jesus, and it made all the difference.

Prayer 4: Cleanse me with Your Word.

The Word of God heals and cleanses you. So as you read it every day–even if you only read one simple, short verse at a time, ask the Lord to wash you clean with every verse you read.

He will do this if you ask. Look what Jesus said to the disciples when He was here on earth:

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (John 15:3 NKJV).

God’s Word will cleanse you and purify you. Go ahead and give God permission to do His complete and full work in your heart as you read His Word, and He will!

Prayer 5: Make me pure in heart, so I can see You.

At the beginning of His famous Sermon the Mount, Jesus said:

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8 NKJV).

God values purity so much that He promises to reveal Himself to those who have a pure heart. The funny thing is that only He can give you that pure heart, but He sure will if you seek Him! It’s a simple, one-sentence prayer, but pray it every day:

“Lord, make me pure in heart, so I can see you.”

Praying that prayer ties your faith for purity to the fact that God promised to reward you for the purity He gives you. 🙂 His reward is being able to see Him personally, and I can’t think of any better reward than that.

Prayer 6: Help me take heed according to Your Word.

There’s a difference between reading God’s Word and taking heed of it. “Taking heed” means obeying it. It means listening to the warnings, teaching, instruction, and correction in the Word–and keeping those things front and center of your thought process as you go throughout your day.

In Psalm 119, King David–the man after God’s own heart–wrote this:

“How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!” (Psalm 119:9-10 NKJV).

David was a man after God’s own heart, but he messed up and sinned plenty. Nevertheless, God forgave him because he truly repented every time. Even though he messed up sometimes, David took heed according to God’s Word.

If you will ask God to help you take heed according to His Word, He will help you live a holy life and be pure before Him, even if you mess up sometimes and sin and have to repent for it.

Prayer 7: Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord.

I pray all these prayers nearly daily, but few of them grip my spirit like this one. If you’re an opinionated or highly-sensitive person like I am, you know how easy it is for words to slip out–and for thoughts to slip in–that are not from the Lord.

That’s why it’s so important for us all to pray every day as David prayed:

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14 NKJV).

I don’t want to think a single thought that is displeasing to God. I don’t want to say anything that Jesus did not already say in any situation. And I don’t want to meditate on anything but those things that are holy.

However, only Jesus can help us carry out those desires. Only He can help us operate out of His mind. We do have the mind of Christ, but learning to use His mind and His mind only takes practice. 🙂

Prayer 8: Help me think only of pure and lovely things.

Today’s culture assails us constantly with things that are not pure or lovely. The devil also tempts all of us with unholy things frequently. However, we each have this mandate from above regarding our thought life:

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:8-9 NKJV).

Beloved, if you will learn to think only about things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy, it will change your life.

Learning to think only about these good, holy, joy-filled, uplifting, and positive things will change everything for you. It will eliminate thoughts of lust, anger, offense, murder, unforgiveness, hatred, rage, adultery, laziness, abuse, and so much more.

If we want to walk in truth, we must understand that following Christ doesn’t give us license to accept what culture and the devil try to feed us.

Christians don’t have permission to watch murder mystery shows, or movies that portray demons or fornication, or to make ribald jokes, or to walk in unforgiveness, or to badmouth people, or to dwell on whatever terrible thing happened in today’s news. We are literally only to think on the things that are pure and holy, and that is one way we change to model the purity of Christ.

Prayer 9: Give me clean hands and a pure heart.

The best way to be pure is to ask God to make you pure. And as the chief prayer of all–the capstone, if you will, of these 9 prayers for purity–I encourage you to pray this every day:

“Lord, give me clean hands and a pure heart.”

This simple prayer comes from Psalm 24:3-5, which says:

“Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive blessing from the Lord,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalm 24:3-5 NKJV).

Beloved, only God can cleanse your heart. Only He can change you from the inside out. And if you ask Him to do that, He will work in you moment by moment, day by day. He will work in you whether or not you realize He is working in you. (Sometimes you will notice it, but other times you won’t!)

And He will give you clean hands and a pure heart. He will take away your stony heart and give you His heart. He will take away your old spirit and give you His Spirit.

As it says in the book of Ezekiel:

“‘Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you.

And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations.

Not for your sake do I do this,’ says the Lord God, ‘let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!'” (Ezekiel 36:25-32 NKJV, emphasis mine).

Beloved, these 9 prayers for purity are simple.

I pray one or more of them every day. Sometimes I pray all nine. We human beings are united in our God-given, innate need to be clean before God. But we can only get that way if HE makes us clean and pure.

Yes, we have to work at it. Yes, we have to labor for the fruit of righteousness–the fruit that remains. Yes, we will grow in proportion to the rate at which we seek God.

But ultimately, God’s Holy Spirit in you does the work.

So pray these 9 prayers for purity daily.

Print out the infographic below and keep it in your Bible, on your mirror, in your car, or in your office. Ask the Lord to help you and make you clean. And if you will ask, He will work in your heart.

Did you pray these 9 prayers for purity today? Is Holy Spirit speaking to you about your innate need to be clean? Do you want to have clean hands and a pure heart, so you can ascend to the hill of the Lord? Leave a comment below!