1. Pure and Clean: Seeing God in Purity of Heart
- Pure and Clean: Seeing God in Purity of Heart.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8).
You will cheer with delight when your innermost being is cleaned of mixed motives and impure thoughts. Congratulations! Your clean inner reservoir of natural instincts will now more clearly reflect a pure image of God, and your eyesight will continue to improve as you gaze upon Him.
‘The essential bliss of the creature is to behold the face of the Creator.” (George MacDonald). Sometimes we have hidden agendas, even kept secret from ourselves. Often, we are mysteries, even unto ourselves. We can surprise ourselves with our double-mindedness and questionable convictions. How can we ever see deeply enough into our psyche to determine if our motives are really pure? Can we consciously choose to have innocent knee-jerk reactions to situations in life? Will we ever have spotless, involuntary impulses? These are deep internal matters, and here we find ourselves right where God wants to work. He wants us to be gradually purified at our subterranean level. He longs to see our motivations become unmixed with inner sinfulness. He yearns that our heartfelt reactions become clean and upright. God wants to transform our deepest, most innermost beings to become unsullied, a pure mountain stream flowing way below the surface with all the impurities washed away. God wants our unbidden thoughts to be righteous, our random feelings to be filled with goodness.
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.” (Ps. 51:10-11). This purification process is a continuous cleansing, it is ongoing. According to Jesus, when we daily submit to that cleansing process, we are to be envied! We are supremely fortunate! For hearts filled with light and purity allow us to see God more and more clearly. The purer our hearts, the more light that is allowed to reach under the surface, the wider open our eyes to recognize the Lord. When complete purity has been achieved, it’s time to celebrate! We will then be seeing Jesus face-to-face! In the meantime, our vision of God will only sharpen as we ask the Holy Spirit to wash us clean at that deep, deep level. Ask for a daily bath down below in the heart. We are unable to cleanse our own hearts at that level. Only the Spirit.
“O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! What a deep wealth of wisdom and knowledge He has! How incomprehensible are His decisions, how unsearchable His judgments! How undiscoverable are His paths, how mysterious His ways, beyond finding out! Who has understood the mind of Yahweh? Who knows how the Lord thinks, or what His thoughts are? Can anyone discern the Lord’s intentions, His motivations? Who knows enough to give Him advice? Is there anyone qualified to be His counselor? Who has given Him so much that He needs to pay it back? Who could ever have a claim against Him? For everything was created by Him, everything lives through Him, and everything exists for Him; So to Him must be given the glory forever! Amen! (Romans 11:33-36,also Isaiah 40:12-14).
Exploring a Frontier: Investigating uncharted territory; seeking something where settled territory is at the edge of wilderness; searching the extreme outer limits of something for knowledge and understanding; detecting something unknown or unexplored; leads to discovery of something new and finding something unexpected.
WANTED: Adventurers who want to explore God, the Final Frontier, the greatest Wonder of the World; must be extremely curious about the nature of God’s Being; motivated to know more about God than you know presently; inspired by the thrill of discovery; need to be challenged and changed in the process of exploration; have the courage to step into a safe unknown; able to invest considerable mental energy to pursue life inside God with a mustard seed of trust in Him; be comfortable with the certainty of endless exploring; have the patience to pursue the quest one step at a time for as long as it takes; must explore with the vision of C. S. Lewis in his Narnia tales, “Further Up and Further In!”
Seeing God’s Character in His Names. “Our Father in heaven, may your Name be kept holy…” (Matthew 6:9). In Scripture, names are significant. Names contain the personal characteristics of that person. They signify the important aspects of that person, the personality, the abilities. Jesus is praying here that the magnificent Name of God be kept holy in the minds of the people. May His Name be honored and sanctified, for in honoring His Name, we are honoring who He is. May the Name of the Lord be set apart into a whole different category from other names. May His Name be sacred and hallowed and kept worthy of one-of-a-kind respect and adoration. May His Name be lifted up and held high above all the rest. God’s Name is the accumulation of His greatness, His attributes, His character. Jesus is yearning in His prayer that God’s Name be adored in the holiness that God deserves. God’s Name is the key to this glorification. God’s Name opens the door to His Personhood and to His divine nature. That is why it so helpful to learn the biblical Names of God. We grow in our understanding of God if we study all these somewhat obscure Hebrew words for God. The truth is that every Name of God highlights an aspect of God’s character and personality. Every Name is an attribute of the God we worship.
Some Facets of the Diamond. When we get to know God’s Names, we are getting to see and know God on a more personal level: YHWH: I Am Who I Am, or I Am He Who Is, or I Will Be What I Will Be; Adonai: Lord Master; Elohim: God Creator and Sustainer; Yahweh-Shammah: Lord is There; El-Roi: God who Sees; Yahweh-Sabaoth: Lord of Angel Armies; Yahweh-Rohi: Lord my Shepherd; Yahweh-Tsidkenu: Lord our Righteousness; Yahweh-Shalom: Lord is Peace; Yahweh-M’kaddesh: Lord makes you Holy; Yahweh-Nissi: Lord my Banner; Yahweh-Rophe: Lord who Heals; Yahweh-Jireh: Lord will Provide; El-Olam: God Everlasting; El-Elyon: God Most High; El-Shaddai: God of Abundant Power.
Seeing God. “What is your name, that we may honor you? He replied, ‘Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. It is a name of wonder.’” (Judges 13:17-18). The Person of God is a divine diamond that is bigger than the universe. We are able to catch a glimpse of Him through His biblical names, but of course knowing God through a handful of His attributes, a meager collection of facets on the eternal Diamond, doesn’t mean we have fully seen God. Moses was only allowed to see God’s backside (Exodus 34). Hallowing God’s name, keeping His name holy, is a dangerous business. We could easily delude ourselves into thinking that we are on a strictly first-name basis with the eternal Godhead! Surely we know that God is an unfathomable mystery to us mere mortals. If we try to remove the mystery hidden within God’s vast existence, our quest for the transcendent Truth of the world disappears. God is a Person with inspired biblical names, to be sure, names that are helpful, descriptive, rich, and they are necessary to begin our understanding of Him. Descriptions understandable to humans, though, cannot fully represent an eternal Creator Spirit.
“Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may reverently hold your Name in awe.” (Ps. 86:11). God is who He is. God will be who He will be…. beyond our comprehension; the Center of creation on whom all things depend; a mystery surpassing the reach of our minds; greater than all reason and knowledge; impossible to define in His divine nature. Anything we are blessed to see of Him are the merest of hints, barely audible echoes. As Job once said, we are merely on the borders of His ways. So let us lift both hands to honor and revere our ineffable God. On the one hand, it would be disobedient to refrain from keeping His name holy. We are instructed to make sure his name is kept sacred. We are asked to pay close attention to those qualities of His that are within our reach. But on the other hand, it is also true that we need to trust in God’s holy and mysterious namelessness, to surrender to His wonderful transcendent nature. While concentrating on God’s known particulars, we acknowledge and rest in the unknowable Whole of His Being.
Tracking God. Trained wilderness trackers call this wide-angled view the “relaxed vision.” This is the perspective that is able to scan the whole field of vision and not fix intensely on a single point. Relaxed vision sacrifices sharpened clarity on the details in order to enjoy a breadth of awareness that is able to get the big picture, the holy panorama, the edges of the field of vision. In God-centered prayer, both focused vision on His revealed Personhood and the relaxed vision of His ultimate Being is vital. Sometimes words are adequate during relaxed vision, but often it seems that we can only echo Job’s words, “I am unworthy. My words have been frivolous, what can I say? I had better lay my hand over my mouth.” (Job 40:4). Whether with words or without, relaxed vision involves a child-like trust in the Big Picture of God’s existence. Assuming that words might be inadequate to the task, may this prayer nonetheless lead into a faithful union with the nameless God, in whom we live and move and have our being.
A Prayer to the God Who Is Beyond Names. O God, Ground of Being, Ancient of Days. What a glorious and wonderful mystery you are! In your mercy you have revealed yourself to us in names and places and people, through word and experience and Scripture. Yet there is so much more of your life that is hidden, and I kneel in awe before you. You are marvelous beyond my understanding, your name is full of unspeakable wonder. I accept that I am only on the outermost borders of your ways, Lord, the mere fringes of your eternal existence. Even so, this is enough for me. My limited glimpse of your power and purity is sufficient to seek you. The faintest whisper of your eternal voice is enough to guide me to your love. And so, Triune God, I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a little child resting in his mother’s arms. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. I know only the smallest fraction of the Reality of your Being, God, but I put my hope in you, from this time forth and forevermore. Amen.
Purity of Heart: A Combination of Human Effort and Divine Grace:
- “Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin”? (Proverbs 20:9).
- “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24).
- “Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (James 4:8).
- “We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (I John 3:2-3).
- “The goal of this teaching is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (I Timothy 1:5).
- “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers and sisters, love one another deeply from the heart.”(I Peter 1:22).
- “True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.” (James 1:27).
Gospel Legends – Highway To Heaven
LYRICS – Highway to Heaven
It’s a highway to heaven, none can walk up there but the pure in heart.
It’s a highway to heaven, walkin’ up the King’s Highway.
If you’re not walking, start while I’m talking, walking up the King’s Highway.
Christ walks beside you, angels will guide you, when you’re walking up the King’s Highway.
My way gets brighter, my load gets lighter, walking up the King’s Highway.
And you’ll be confessing that there is a blessing, when you’re walking up the King’s Highway.