'The Pure in Heart See God'

is a Psalm of Ascent. It was sung as pilgrims were approaching the Temple. When they saw the Temple on top of Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem they began to sing songs of preparation. Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who can stand in His Holy Place? 

That is the question all pilgrims in this world need to contemplate. It isn’t asking if anyone can, but ‘Can I?’. How can we have boldness to come before God? We should apply ourselves to both outward piety and inward piety – clean hands and a pure heart. Neither is sufficient in itself. We can have ‘clean hands’ doing all the right things. However, our hearts can be far from ‘right’ when we do those things. Other times we might focus on ourselves and loving God and forget to love our neighbors. Like David, James puts it all together when he wrote, “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.” (James 2:17-18)

Jesus repeated many times the call to have inward purity of heart. He told the Pharisees, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” (Luke 11, Matt 23) Jesus continues to drive home that we need ‘pure hearts’ which will result in ‘clean hands’ on the outside. He wants us to have an integrity in which the outside and inside are of one cloth – no hiding, manipulating, pretension, or posturing. He wants us to be who He created us to be inside and out all the time. 

Don’t mistake the message here. Jesus isn’t asking for perfection. He knows we all sin and fall short. He wants us to have a heart that pursues Him. A heart that is humble, attentive, and faithful in all our halting ways. Someone once said that God is not in the business of making bad people good, but making dead people alive. The more we allow the Holy Spirit to shape us, the more we will come alive. When we come alive, we will see the very face of God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt 5:8)

Blessings in 2023,

Jonathan