The Pure

The second Beatitude of the last four, (so actually the sixth one in Christ’s sermon) is "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This is what it says in the amplified version: "Blessed (happy, enviably fortunate, and spiritually prosperous—possessing the happiness produced by the experience of God’s favor and especially conditioned by the revelation of His grace, regardless of their outward conditions) are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!"

In the Old Testament, in Psalm 24, David asks the question in verse 3: "…who shall stand in His (God’s) Holy Place?" And he answers it with (verse 4) "He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted himself up to falsehood or to what is false, nor sworn deceitfully."

How can we, mere human beings have a pure heart? The principle for being pure would seem to be giving one’s heart wholly to God! Even then it makes one wonder how it is possible.

In I Kings 11:4 it states David’s heart was "wholly devoted to the Lord his God." We know from reading all about the life of David that he did not always act pure. He had committed murder as well as adultery, yet it says he had a ‘wholly devoted heart’. As we think about David’s life, however, we see that he always had a song. When he was a shepherd boy, he sang; running from his enemies, he had a song. When he sinned, he wrote the most beautiful and heartbroken hymn of repentance (see Psalm 51). So, he sinned, yet in his heart he was praiseworthy. No man or woman will have a totally "pure" performance, but when we give the Lord our God our heart, He sees us as "pure".

When we are pure, the way we treat others will come from our love for God. The way the sixth Beatitude reads in The Message helps to explain this. "You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world." And not only will we see God in the outside world, but also the outside world will see God in us. He is not looking for a perfect performance, but He does look for a heart wholly devoted to Him.

A.W. Tozer tells us how to have our minds "wholly on the Lord". It is "by faith and obedience, by constant meditation on the holiness of God, by loving righteousness and hating iniquity, by a growing acquaintance with the Spirit of holiness." Proverbs 23:26 states "my son (daughter), give me your heart and let your eyes observe and delight in my ways."

My daily prayer is that I will have a heart wholly devoted to the Lord; He will see me as "pure", and others will see Jesus in me.