My God Is The God Who Blesses Part 7

I have been so encouraged by the truth that Jesus first taught His disciples. Jesus wanted them to understand that in the many situations of living, each situation was an opportunity to experience God’s favour and to grow spiritually. The next verse that Jesus taught is such a challenge because it is the exact opposite of the environment we find ourselves living in,  we live in a world that has such ungodly values and there is an ever-increasing pressure to condone such behaviour.  The bible clearly states that while we live in the world, the way that the world lives should not part of how we live. The verse we are looking at is Matthew 5:8 which says: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”. The first thing I want to establish is the importance of the heart, for the bible teaches that it is the core of how we live. Proverbs 4:23 says: “ Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life” NLT “Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything that you do”. And Proverbs 23:7 says “As a man thinks in his heart so is he!” These verses clearly state the heart is the driving force behind how we live and we must protect it at all costs. When David sinned, he acknowledged his sin and said in Psalms 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me”. David wanted a new heart to replace the one contaminated by sin. Now I want to look at what the Bible means by “Pure in heart”, the word pure has two aspects to it, firstly as the state of being cleansed, and secondly the state of not being contaminated. We understand very clearly that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin when we repent which make us pure in the sight of God. At times this fact it hard to accept when we remember the deeds of the past.  The state of not being contaminated is the part that we play for it is easy at times to allow behaviour that is not Godly to become part of our life. This is why a close relationship with the Lord is so essential because sin and God do not mix. This is where our conscience warns us of the present danger, if we obey our conscience it will always warn us. But if we do not obey it becomes hardened and ineffective and we can do things that are wrong without remorse. The reward of being pure in heart is that we see God, this is a wonderful truth because it is so encouraging to see God in the way that we live. We can be tempted to see many things, but when our focus is on the Lord then we see God’s answer in the difficult times. It is so wonderful that God is in control while others may be worried and afraid we know that God’s favour is with us. It is so good to understand that we are not contaminated by the world and that we live with His favour all the time.