Pure: August 12, 2014

TODAYS WORD FOR TUESDAY AUGUST 12, 2014.

PURE

DEFINITION:

Genuine; sincere; clean; free from contamination; perfect; spotless; guiltless; chaste.

SCRIPTURE:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

Pure in the Greek means to have a clean heart, to be unsoiled, unmixed, unpolluted, to be cleansed, purged, and forgiven, to be holy, and to have a single purpose, that of God’s glory. This is what Jesus was saying as He taught this beatitude on the Sermon on the Mount.

The person that is pure in heart lives a clean life. A clean life honors God. He keeps himself unspotted from the evils of the world. He obeys the truth found in the Word of God through the working of the Holy Spirit in his or her life. He keeps his hands clean of wrong doing and seeks to be at all times without spot and blameless.

Jesus tells us in this beatitude that we will be blessed when we get our inside world, meaning our mind and heart, cleansed and purged of the pollution of sin. Then we will see God in our outside world do His will in our life. 

A person’s very best behavior is seldom, if ever, free from some mixture of self. Because of our sinful nature it is questionable if we can be perfectly free from mixed motives. The believer is to constantly search his heart and cleanse it of impure motives.

There are two wonderful promises made to the pure in heart. Presently, on this earth they shall see God by faith, and then, eternally the pure in heart shall see God face to face.

The unsaved man cannot have a pure heart as long as he rejects the Lord Jesus as his Savior. The natural (unregenerate) heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked and the things of God are foolishness to him. (Jeremiah 17:9)

Who are the pure in heart according to the scripture?

•    In Psalm 24:3-5 we read that they are void of hypocrisy.
•    In Matthew 6:25 it reads that they have room for only one master.
•    In Psalm 42:1 it says they thirst for God as a deer thirsts for the water brook.
•    In II Corinthians 5:17 we read that they have a newly created heart.
•    The pure in heart forsake and confess all known sin. Proverbs 28:13.
•    They are able to sin but are not happy in sin. When they sin, they repent and seek forgiveness. I John 1:9.
•    In I Corinthians 2:15-16 we read that they are spiritually minded and discern what God’s truth is because they have the mind of Christ.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in Joshua 1:9.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

PRAYER:

My prayer is that You will create in me a clean heart and help me to be pure in heart so that I may discern Your truth and have the mind of Christ. Although for now I can see You as through a glass darkly, I thank You that in eternity I will see You face to face in all Your glory. (I Corinthians 13:12)