Matthew 5:8 8Blessed are the pure in heart, because they shall see God.
Purity is an important theme in the Bible. Pure (katharoi) describes something holy, clean, undefiled, and without sin. The pure in heart walk in the will of God and in fellowship with God, like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. There is nothing to hide from God. It is related to having integrity and being honest. God is the only one who can make us pure, and this happens as we surround in faith to him.
Who are the pure in heart? Only those who have totally surrendered their lives to the lordship of Jesus Christ and received his promised cleansing from sin (1 John 1:9). This person has allowed the Holy Spirit to change him or her from the inside out. God’s part is he is the one who makes us pure. Our part is to commit our lives to him and follow his Spirit.
Kierkegaard wrote, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” If we renounce our desires, priorities, and self, and rely on Jesus, his word will purify us and make us fit vessels for his holy presence. Anything we give to God is made holy because it is now under God’s control. When we surrender ourselves, we allow God to be control and he makes us holy. The pure in heart belongs exclusively to Jesus. The desires of life and the deceit of the things of this world will tempt us to shift our priorities and motives from God’s kingdom to worldly kingdoms. Such compromise may allow sin to creep in and draw us away from King Jesus.
Purity begins in the heart and works outward. If our hearts are not pure, nothing else about us will be pure either but only religious action empty of transformative power. A pure heart seeks to know Jesus Christ and to walk in his ways. Our thoughts, motives, and lifestyle reflect Jesus. The outer person matches the inner person, with integrity and not hypocrisy. As the Spirit purifies us day by day, we take on more of the nature of Jesus.
The result of a pure heart is the ability to see God. Only that which is holy can be in God’s presence. Hebrews 12:14 echoes this beatitude: “Pursue peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Having a pure heart leads to relationship with our Creator, and having a relationship with our Creator purifies our heart. Only those who have looked on Christ in this life will see God in eternity. Those who hearts have become a reflection of Jesus Christ will be able to come into God’s presence. Our hearts become a reflection of Jesus and our identities are found in him.
Our purity is a gift of Jesus’ purity. We trust in his grace, not our own strength. We cannot be pure on our own. Our goal is purity of heart, but there are many things that challenge us. Purity is a life-long journey of confession and conformity: confession by recognizing our failures and sins so that we can be healed, and conformity so we can be changed more and more into the likeness of Jesus. We begin to live in the pattern of the kingdom of God and not the kingdoms of this world.
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