Honoring God with Our Lips, Thoughts, Pure Hearts & Actions (5.4.14)

 Does Your Inside Match Your Outside?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see GOD -  Matthew 5:8

Once a father told his child to sit down. The child refused. Again the father told his child to sit down and again the child stubbornly refused. Finally, the father said, “If you don’t sit down I’m going to give you a spanking.” The child sat down and said, “I’m sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing up on the inside!” 

This reminds me of what Jesus said to the Jewish leaders:  You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me… - Matthew 15:7-8.

Outwardly they honored GOD.  They sang songs and prayed and tithed.  But they had no love for GOD. Their hearts, their inner persons, were impure and they acted religious to be noticed by men, not to please GOD. They were hypocrites. The word hypocrite comes from a word meaning actor. A hypocrite’s an actor, a pretender. He professes some value or belief, but his private life does not match it. He’s not pure in heart. So, to be pure in heart, means our words must match our thoughts. Our outer life should match our inner life.

When GOD saves us he gives us new hearts:  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules - Ezekiel 36:26-27

GOD gives us new hearts that want to follow and obey him.  He pours his Holy Spirit into us, which will motivate us to sincere obedience. To be pure in heart doesn’t mean we never sin. But it does means that now we don’t want to sin. We hate it when we do, and are grateful for Jesus’ constant cleansing (1 John 1:9).

There are a few ways to cultivate purity of heart:

• Read your Bible regularly for it convicts, warns and encourages us.
• Ask GOD for inner purity. David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart.” 
• Regularly ask GOD to deliver you from evil and temptation.
• Be careful what you take in through your eyes and ears. 
• Flee from temptation; and when you feel closed in and surrounded ask GOD for deliverance for a wise Christian should above all things keep his heart pure.
• Fellowship – confess your struggles and temptations and ask for prayer from other trustworthy believers.

The reward for pursuing purity? “They shall see GOD.”

Beloved, we are GOD’s children now, and what we will be, has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).

Because we want to see Jesus, we should seek to purify ourselves now, by the power of the Spirit.

Bless & Be Blessed,

- Marilyn Chaney