Malaysians are increasingly concerned about purity. We view purity as the quality of life. We talk about pure water, pure diet, and every year when haze comes, we hardly have clean air to breathe. As important as clean air, pure water, and pure diet are, we tend to overlook one aspect of purity that is so important to our well being.
Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God! (Matthew 5:8 Good News).
• Happy are the pure in heart. Our well being and happiness has nothing to do with what goes inside you, it has to do with what comes out.
1. What is pure in heart?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully (Psalms 24:4 NKJV).
• Pure in heart means a heart that is cut off from the influence of idols and falsehood. He is conscious of God’s presence and allows God to influence his thought life, emotion and will. He is more concerned about what is in God’s heart than what people think about him. Simply stated, a pure in heart is God’s pleaser.
• Many Christians may not bow down to idols, but they allow the value system of this world to influence the way they see and judge.
• A pure in heart sets his heart on God’s priorities. What is important to God is his concern. His joy and reward is praise from God. As a result, he has unmixed motives. He can be transparent; for he does not seek praise from man.
• If you live life to please everyone else except God you will be miserable. Happiness is found in pleasing God.
2. Why we need to have a pure heart?
It is possible for Christians to do good with wrong motives. It is even possible to be outwardly religious and inwardly in a mess.
• God treasures a pure heart so much that He devoted the whole chapter 6 of Matthew to talk about it.
a. God sees our heart
The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5 NIV).
• Paul commanded Timothy to love with a pure heart. Man look at outward appearance, judge things from what they see, hear and observe. God looks at the intentions of our heart.
• A lot of people think that they can fool God. Have you ever heard that devilish thought telling you, "Go ahead, nobody will ever find out." God already knows!
Nothing in all the world can be hidden from God. Everything is clear and lies open before him, and to him we must explain the way we have lived (Hebrews 4:13 NCV).
• We can fool others but not God. If God already knows everything even before I do it, I might as well have a pure heart before Him rather than trying to hide.
• The amazing thing about God is even though He knows all the secret thoughts, plans or things that I am going to do, He still loves me.
b. Religiosity oppose pure in heart
In Matthew 6, Jesus points out two values that is enmity to a pure heart.
"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him…. "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matthew 6:1-8, 16-18 NIV).
• The first value that is opposite to a pure heart is a form of religiosity which Jesus calls hypocrisy. This kind of religiosity propels man to be devoted to a set of practises that is godly in order to please the heart of man or to appease his own heart.
• The danger of being religious is that you can do everything right outwardly, yet your heart is not connected with God. It is so deceiving that people around you may think that you are godly, but only God and you know why you do what you do.
• Just like the three examples that Jesus gave: giving, praying and fasting, all these are good but when you do them religiously, this practice replace a real relationship with God and rob you from your reward.
• You are not rewarded just by what you do. You are rewarded by what you do and why you do it (see verses 4,6,18).
c. Examine your priorities and realigns your life
The second value that opposes a pure heart is worldliness.
Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:21, 24 NLT).
• Our heart can serve only one master at a time. You either let the worldly value influence you or God.
• How do you know where your heart is? There are three things that show the priority of your heart: first, where you invest your time and money, second, what you worry about the most, third, what is your ambition.
• Jesus advised us “Don’t store up treasure on earth….keep them in heaven. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be” (see Matthew 6: 20, 21).
• Regardless of what we say where our first place is, where we spend our time and money determines where our first place is. That's why the purpose of tithing is to teach us to put God first place in our lives. When I bring the first 10%, not the last 10% of my money back to God; I acknowledge that it all came from Him in the first place. The first day of the week – Sunday, goes to God, God is first.
• Secondly, what do you worry about the most? You can tell a lot about a person by what they worry about. If you'll go through second half of Matthew 6, the five most common worries are in this passage. v. 24 -- finances; v. 25 -- food; v. 27 -- fitness; v. 28 -- fashion; v. 34 -- future. If you're worrying about any of these things, it means God is not number one in your life. You have a misplaced priority. You are opening up your heart for the world to influence you.
• You need to check out your activities and check out your anxieties. Worry indicates there is a wrong priority. Worry says, "God, I think I'm in charge here." Do you worry about finances instead of trusting God? Do you worry about fashion? The Bible says, don't worry about clothes. God says "Check out these things to see if your priorities are right."
• Thirdly, look at your ambitions. My goals reveal the direction of my heart. Whatever is the number one goal in my life, ambition of my life, what's important to me, that is going to be my god.
So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need (Matthew 6:31-33 NLT).
• What dominate your mind, your thoughts -- that's ambition. Don't be always looking for what everybody else is looking for. Many believers have the exact same ambitions as unbelievers. That is the problem. They've bought into the culture, into the system. So as a result, they have the same tension. Same stress. Same headaches. Same problems. God says, set your heart first on doing what God wants you to do and all these other things will be brought in as a matter of course.
3. A pure heart brings happiness
The result of being pure in heart enables you to encounter God in your every need, in your daily life. Happy are the pure in heart, they will see God.
• Just as you don't see too well with dirty glasses, you don't see God too well with a dirty heart. You've got to clean it up.
• How can I clean up my heart so I can be happy? The answer is you can't. You cannot clean up your heart on your own. Otherwise, Jesus wouldn't have needed to come to earth.
Create in me a pure heart, God, and make my spirit right again (Psalm 51:10 NCV).
• To get a pure heart you just ask God. God wants to give you a brand new heart (see Ezekiel 36: 25-27).
• Only the blood of Jesus can clean our heart. If you need a heart transplant today, come to Dr. Jesus. He is always available and 100% effective.
• Would you come to God and say, "OK, God, I need a new heart. My life is a mess; I don’t want to pretend to be happy anymore when I am not. “Happiness comes from the inside out. Happiness comes when your heart is right with God.
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