Matthew 5:8- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
That is an absolutely shocking verse to me. The pure in heart will see God. Can you imagine being able to see the God of the universe? Can you imagine being able to look at His face? Revelation gives us a glimpse ahead of what it will be like. Revelation 22:3-4 says, "There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads." This is a completely and utterly shocking picture. There is no greater gift than the gift of God Himself. And Scripture tells us that the pure in heart will get to see God. We would do well to consider some implications of this. This is the same God who said to Moses, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!" (Exodus 33:20) What is going on here? Is this some kind of contradiction? How can one verse tell us that nobody can see God and live, yet another tells us that the pure in heart will see God?
That brings us to the heart of the problem (pun intended). Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" The pure in heart will see God. That is wonderful news. The awful news is that nobody has a pure heart. We all by nature have a deceitful and wicked heart. It's not just deceitful and wicked, but it is deceitful and wicked ABOVE ALL THINGS. Maybe Jeremiah 17:9 is just talking about the hearts of a few people, though. Surely everybody's heart is not so bad, right? Wrong… Romans 3:10 says, "As it is written, THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE." What is going on here? Was Jesus just playing word games in Matthew 5? Is that an empty promise? Is there no hope?
Let's use a little logic for a moment, shall we? The pure in heart will see God. We have wicked hearts, though. It sounds to me like what we need is a heart transplant. We need to get rid of our filthy hearts and get a new and pure one. Is that even possible, though? Ezekiel 36:25-27 says, "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances."
Now this is wonderful news! God says that He is able to cleanse us from the filthiness of our sins. Not only that, but He will take out our sin-hardened heart of stone and will replace it with a pure heart of flesh. This is an astounding miracle! Not only can He give us a new heart, but He can also give us His Holy Spirit to live inside of us. And with the Holy Spirit inside of us, He will cause us to obey His commandments. Philippians 2:13 says, "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." With a brand new heart and His Spirit inside of us, He will be at work in us to cause us to will and work for His good pleasure. Our hearts can be pure. Our sins can be cleansed. And He can help us to obey.
This begs a question. How do we get this heart transplant? Let's go to the words of our Lord Jesus Himself. Mark 1:15 says, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." We must repent and believe in the gospel. Repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. What does it mean to repent? We must be sickened and disgusted by our sins. When we truly see how bad our sin is, it causes us to want to turn from it. We want to be free from it, yet we realize that we are powerless to save ourselves. That causes us to turn to the only One who can save us, Jesus Christ. We turn from our love of sin and self and place all of our hope and trust in Christ to save us. What does it mean to believe? We believe that it is only through the worth of His sinless life, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection that we can be saved. We trust in Christ as our only hope of salvation. So repentance strips us of our love of sin and confidence in our ability to save ourselves. Then it turns us to believe in the only One that can save us. Repentance causes us to believe in Christ. When we do those things, by the grace of God, we can have that pure heart that we desperately need. And because of that, we will be able to see God. And it just doesn't get any better than that! Praise His Name for that wonderful grace!!!
Until next time, blessings to you…
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