Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Mat 5:8
Do you want to see God? I do! I want to see Him face to face – the One who saved me. The scriptures say that we who believe will see Him:
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 1 John 3:2
The requirement for seeing God face to face is purity of heart. Consider the following passage:
Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
And who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood
And has not sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive a blessing from the Lord
And righteousness from the God of his salvation. Psalm 24:3-5
The Psalm describes some attributes of a pure heart. A soul not lifted up to falsehood, has not sworn deceitfully. Here are some synonyms for the word “pure”: clean, unstained, guiltless, innocent, upright. Falsehood in the Psalm here conveys a meaning of vanity, emptiness, deception. Interesting that the Merriam-Webster definition of vanity caries the same meaning – “inflated pride in oneself; empty or valueless”. The word “deceitfully” means “treacherous”: two-faced, double-crossing, faithless, disloyal. So a person who is a two faced, disloyal, prideful double crosser is someone who does not have a pure heart.
The word purity, its meaning, and its value have been lost to a culture that has become filled with itself, disloyal to the Lord. Faithless. Is this the way you live? Empty, impure? You can be clean.
When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. 2 And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” 3 Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Matthew 8:1-3
Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. He did it with the leper. He can do it with your heart. All you have to do is get past your pride, vanity, self delusion and ask Him. What would He say to you? What did He say to the leper? Do you have a willing heart? Then He is willing.
This is why Jesus came. To pay the penalty for our sin – to make a way for us to overcome the sinful, deceitful, treacherous inclinations of our heart. We are all guilty – all have sinned. There is nobody righteous before God – not one. But as we give our heart to the Lord in repentance and faith, we receive a purity of heart from Him that we did not have before. Our sin is removed from us and remembered no more. As a result, we are empowered by His Spirit and the Word of God to live in purity, righteousness. This is the righteousness we receive from the God of our salvation – His righteousness.
Where is the pure heart? The heart that is clean? Such a heart would flip all of the adjectives I have just described. A heart of purity is thus filled with faith, loyal to the Lord, single minded towards His purposes. It is a heart not inflated with self but a heart that magnifies the Lord and walks in righteousness received from the God of his salvation.
The blessing of those who have purity of heart: “they will see God.”
