Can you begin this new and uncertain year with a pure heart?

“But, I can’t,” you say? “My heart isn’t pure and I don’t know how to make it pure. I can try to be better, but there are stains and dirt from previous sins.”

A pure heart contains no mixture. Part this, part that. Part God, part other.

Jesus told us that seeing God is for the pure in heart. That leaves us in a dilemma. No one is pure in heart for the Bible says that all have sinned. All have dirty, stained hearts.

In a small book,a letter, near the end of the Bible there we find an answer. It says that Jesus not only forgives our sins, but also, cleanses us. Washes all the effects of that sin away. Making us pure.

How to maintain that purity? He also wants to do that for us if we allow Him. He will, over time, transform our inner being, our heart, removing the impurities. He will remove all the mixture that makes us impure until our heart is all His, pure.

As He removes impurities one at a time, or rather encourages us to give them to Him, we become more and more complete. Yes, the less we have the more complete we are.

We were created to be God containers and the less we have of other “stuff”, the more room there is for Him, filling us up with His perfect life. Making us pure and complete. 

Words to light your path this week

• Matthew 5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.ESV
• 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ESV
• Colossians 2:10 and you are complete in Him NKJV
• Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walks as children of light  NKJV
• 1 Thessalonians 5:23   Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  ESV
• Hebrews 12:14  Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ESV
• John 14:21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”  ESV

As we begin to focus upon God the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes. Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead (John 14:21-23). It will give acute perception enabling us to see God even as is promised to the pure in heart. A new God consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear and inwardly feel the God who is our life and our all. There will be seen the constant shining of the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives.

Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer pg.59, The Gutenberg Project E-book

Holy Father, as You guide our lives and direct our circumstances, may we always yield to Your purifying process.

The Pursuit of God

My Utmost