Spiritual purity can seem very hard to be accomplished. Though it can be challenging to comprehend and put into practice, God has the highest regard for this concept.

In His sixth Beatitude, Jesus emphasized being “pure in heart.”

In today’s society, vulgar language, “adult” movies, and dirty jokes are applauded. Things that were previously universally despised and detested today seem acceptable.

Isaiah 5:20 states that people “call evil good” and no longer feel ashamed of their immoral thoughts and deeds.

“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush..” (Jeremiah 8:12).

Even those claiming to be righteous still carry the impurity of sin unless they have repented and have been forgiven.

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away” – Isaiah wrote (Isaiah 64:6).

Because we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), we are all impure. We all need the Savior, Jesus Christ, to make us clean and acceptable in God’s eyes by purifying us from all impurities.

In the previous Beatitude (Matthew 5:7) we learned that those who are merciful would also receive mercy. We show mercy to those who did not deserve it because we ourselves are in need of mercy.

Now the sixth Beatitude (Matthew 5:8) says “Blessed are the pure in heart because they shall see God”. Therefore, the characteristic of purity is one of the attributes that God values highly.

The Father extends mercy to us because He now sees us in Christ Jesus, having been cleansed of all wickedness by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the blood He shed for us.

Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

This sixth Beatitude places specific emphasis on the heart.

God is able to perceive a person’s very heart and essence, whilst people can only see their outward form.

As God said to Samuel when he was about to anoint a new king over Israel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”
(1 Samuel 16:7).

God truly knows us at the very core of our being (Acts 15:8).

God cares a great deal about our deeds—what we do. Yet He examines what we are doing in our hearts where only He can see.

For example, Jesus emphasized the commandment against adultery by saying “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).

He considers not just what we do in our hearts, but also how close we are to Him in our hearts (Matthew 15:8-9).

It is true that having a pure heart is not something that comes naturally to us.

We can’t stress enough how important is the scripture John 15:5 where Jesus says:
„…apart from Me you can do nothing.“

In order to have such a heart, we need to rely on Jesus’ sacrifice and have a repentant spirit.

The Holy Spirit helps us in the conviction of our sins. Repentance really means the change of our thoughts by accepting God’s thoughts as our own.

Therefore, we need to go to God as King David did, praying: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

For They Shall See God

Just think about who will you encounter when they you have a pure heart: the Creator God! The most powerful and loving being in the universe! This is the God who made the universe from nothing with just a word.

He split the Red Sea to brought Israel out of ancient Egypt. He made a plan of salvation involving the sacrifice of a member of the Godhead so that all mankind can be added to God’s family.

He is the God whose dazzling glory would have taken Moses’ life if God had not covered him (Exodus 33:18-23).

Ancient Israel had to be physically purified in order to hear God’s 10 Commandments (Exodus 19:10-11). And the priests had to cleanse themselves, before entering the Tabernacle of God to met encounter Him.

These physical rules highlight how awesome it is to come into God’s presence, because to actually see God is beyond our physical comprehension, and it requires spiritual purity.

In the Bible it is mentioned that the privilege of seeing God is only given to one group:
those who are holy and pure in God’s eyes.

As King David wrote, “Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3-4).

We shall notice that we can encounter God’s presence every day, but will only see Him face-to-face after our resurrection.

The Way Of Man – What Is The Worldview Of Purity

But man does not have a natural tendency toward purity. The average person’s thoughts do not prioritize the idea of spiritual purity. Instead, man pollutes himself by disobeying God, which leads to many different forms of wickedness, such as the ones Paul listed in Romans 1:24-32:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.

They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Sadly, man instinctively disobeys the same commandment of God, that intends to keep him pure and protected, written in Romans 8:7

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

Our impurity is not simply surface-level; it has grown into our minds and is fundamental to who we are.

As Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

How Purity Of Heart Looks

There is no doubting that we need God’s help in having a pure heart, but we also have a role to play, in having our hearts purified. God entreats us, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes” (Isaiah 1:16).

This is not possible without the Holy Spirit. He is the One who transforms us from the inside out in order to make us more like God. Only God has the power to transform a person’s inner self and bring forth the good out of him.

Jesus Christ said that we should work to “cleanse the inside” of us (Matthew 23:26) so that we may be pure before God.

A key element of cleansing ourselves and overcoming is striving to obey the pure “commandment of the LORD” (Psalm 19:8), with the help of the Holy Spirit.

This can be done when we pray and pour our hearts before God to change us so that we might follow His way and also to actively turn away from that which is impure and be protected from all evil.

As we overcome and grow in purity of heart, we will be choosing to think pure thoughts. This will also come with effort as we set our minds on pure and godly things as it is written in Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Purity of the heart also extends and affects our external words and actions. As Jesus said, “For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

Purity of heart is important, because it will enable us to enter God’s family and have an eternal relationship with our Creator God.

Let us always remember that God Jesus Christ beloved us by dying on the cross for us. He cleanses us from all sins and evil doings, once we call upon His Name to save us and make us pure and clean before Him.

It is with the help of the Holy Spirit that we can bear fruit in keeping with repentance (Luke 13:6-9). He changes and helps us continue with a pure heart in our life journey.

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

We continue praying to God in the name of Jesus, asking Him to protect our hearts from all that might be deceitful and evil and to keep our hearts pure so that we might see Him, glorified in all His splendor and Majesty.

Purity of heart also contributes to being peacemakers, the next Beatitude.

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