Day 27

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” —MATTHEW 5:8

The biggest battle of our lives is the corruption of our hearts. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” We know our hearts are not pure, and never likely to be, so what did Jesus mean when He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God?”

The word Jesus uses for ‘pure’ is the Greek word ‘katharos’, which does not mean pure in the sense of perfection, but pure in not being mixed with other things. Wine not diluted with water can be said to be ‘katharos’ wine; perhaps not the best wine, but it is pure in that it is undiluted. A pure heart, therefore, is an undiluted heart. It is to say with Paul, ‘this one thing I do’ (Philippians 3:13), not ‘these 25 things I dabble with’ and only one of them is my life in Christ. Of course, there are other components to our lives: family, work, friendships, recreation, etc., but they all work out of ‘this one thing’. Paul states it as being, ‘I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Anything that inhibits my progress to which God has called me to become is a hindrance.

We can have divided hearts where different things take hold. David prays in Psalm 86:11, ‘give me an undivided heart’. In a divided heart you can be sure the secular will always swallow the sacred, and it is the work of God that will be polluted.

The heart is the seat of our personality where our mind, emotions and will come together. One translation of Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘as a man thinks in his heart so is he’. To be pure in heart is to narrow our interests down to the interests of Jesus Christ, which far from making them narrow, will open them up to all that is the purpose and agenda of God. That is why the promise which follows this condition is, ‘they shall see God’. This is not about seeing God physically, but seeing Him in creation, in circumstances, in confusion and crisis. The ‘pure in heart’ will not panic in the storms of life, but will ‘see God’ with eyes impossible to those whose hearts are not pure – not pure as in perfect, but as in undiluted - ‘katharos’ style.

PRAYER: Dear Father in Heaven, How grateful I am that You have given us ways to know You and see You, especially in the storms of life. Help me to look out from an undivided heart and see You in every facet of my life.

TO REFLECT UPON: Are there areas of my life I need to bring Jesus in?