Word For The Day: Purity of Heart
In the last few devotionals, we have been talking about issues of the heart.
Today I would like to take you again to the most famous sermon ever preached, the sermon on the mount. In it, Jesus talks about the righteousness that is need of a citizen of the kingdom, a righteousness of the heart. So let us look at what Jesus says:
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mat. 5:8)
What does the passage mean?
This beatitude is the most important and central of all the beatitudes. You cannot be poor in spirit, mourn over your sin, be meek, hunger, and thirst for righteousness and be a peacemaker if you do not have a pure heart. The purity of the heart in this passage has to do with the Old Testament idea of clean vs unclean. There were some things in the OT that were considered unclean and were thus forbidden by God because he wanted to show his people that holy things are not to be confused with unholy things. Therefore, in a sense, a pure heart is one that in holiness obeys and follows God’s commandments and does so sincerely because he has been sanctified to serve the Lord. A pure in heart is also one that has an undivided devotion for God.
Purity of heart has nothing to do with external rituals of religion; it has to do with a sincere heart. It is very easy to be religious and just live a life of hypocrisy without Christ, but a person whose heart is clean, has the right motives when he does something for the Lord.
For many people, impurity has to do with sexual immorality or sexual sins, but for the Lord, anything that is contrary to his will and commandments shows a heart that is characterized by impurity. In fact, a pure heart is so important because it is the one and only prerequisite or requirement to see God. Our Lord will not admit an unholy and impure person into heaven; you need to be holy, you need to be pure!
What does it mean to me?
The first and most important question I want to ask is, has your heart been made holy and pure by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus? You must understand that religious performance will not take you to heaven; in fact, you could be very religious and moral and still have an impure heart. If you have never trusted in Christ, you are not holy and you will never see God, so I invite you to turn to Jesus so he sanctifies you to serve him with a pure heart.
Dear brother and sister, are the motives of your heart pure? Are you following Jesus out of a pure heart? It very well could be that you are doing things to be seen by men; that would be something that Jesus considers impure. You must ask God to search your heart and to lead you in his ways. You will never be humble in spirit, you will never be meek and peacemaker, you will never hunger and thirst for righteousness if you do not allow God to purify pour heart of evil motives. Therefore, I encourage you to spend time with God today and ask him to help you have a clean and transparent heart in everything you do.
God bless you all,
Pastor Hector