In Matthew 5 Jesus calls every believer to seek to grow and mature in the beatitudes. These eight blessings come from our Father as we cultivate these values deep into our heart. He’s teaching us that this is the kind of heart that attracts the blessing of our Father. Hence we should aggressively seek to lay hold of each of these beatitudes until they are the true fragrance of our lives. It’s not enough to know about poverty of spirit, meekness or purity of heart. We must become poor in spirit, be meek people and purify our hearts and minds before God. As we mature in these beatitudes it will lead us to great impact in the world (Matthew 5:13-14). 

 

I want to highlight one of these beatitudes: Matthew 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." What a profound reward for those who cultivate a pure heart before Jesus... they shall see God! What an invitation! Purity of heart is the place of intimate communion where God is the greatest reward to the human heart. It is the focused gaze of love with the purest motive of serving and obeying Jesus. Purity of heart has to do with the things that motivate our actions. It has more to do with why we do the things we do than it has to do with what we actually do. It is the purifying of the inward place of fleshly desires that corrupt us as we form Biblical truth in the depth of our heart.

 

Jesus says the ones that purify their hearts will be rewarded... "...they shall see God’. What does He mean by this? I’m sure there’s an ocean of meaning that I have yet to discover but I do believe one of the areas He’s speaking of is the revelation of God as we study His Word. In Ephesians 1:17 Paul prays that we would receive a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of God. He’s praying that God, by His Spirit, would reveal God to our minds and hearts as we pursue Him. Did you know that to the degree that we purify our minds and hearts before God has a direct effect on the revelation of God we receive in prayer and study? I tell the interns all the time that the purity of our hearts and minds or lack of greatly affects our Bible study. I long to purify my mind and heart and rid of the things that would taint me that I would be able to ‘see God’ as I search for Him in the Word. As we set our hearts and minds to pursue and embrace purity we attract the blessing of our Father to see Him. This is the promise of this beatitude.

 

There are many fronts that we must wage war on in regards to sin as we seek to purify our heart. One of the fronts I want us to be aware of is our speech. There are many verses in the Bible that relate purity of heart to the way we speak (Proverbs 22:11, 15:26, Psalm 12:6, Matthew 5:22, 15:11, 18, 1 Timothy 4:12, 5:1-2). What I’m mostly thinking of when I think of our speech is the ‘spirit’ in which we speak and not so much the words. Of course, we are to abstain from filthy words (Colossians 3:8). But there’s more than just not saying ‘bad’ words that can taint our hearts. When we speak in the wrong spirit towards or about someone we are sowing in the flesh and will reap corruption of the heart (Galatians 6:8). It is critical that we resist the flesh in regards to our speech. Jesus taught us to speak in the opposite spirit... to bless and pray for our enemies. As we do this we are guarding and cultivating purity in the inward place of our heart before Jesus. 

 

The rule that I have always operated by in regards to my speech is that if I cannot speak in a godly spirit to or about a person or situation I don’t speak at all. I take my ‘offense’ to God and hash it out with Him. He has the ability to change my heart about a situation and give me wisdom to speak into it if it’s necessary. Beloved the promise from God is that we’ll see God as we radically pursue purity of heart. There’s no greater experience for us than when God reveals God to the human spirit. When He touches me with revelation of who He is I’m exhilarated in my love for Him and in my joy to be alive. 

 

May the Lord bless us and keep us as we pursue purity of heart. Amen.