Blessed, The Pure In Heart

Matthew 5:8a – Blessed are the pure in heart. (NKJV)

The repulsive stain looked like a black river across my silver thumb ring. Quenching my exceedingly great disappointment, I first applied silver cleaner, then vinegar, without effect. I thought of soaking the ring in a dish of the silver cleaner, but prayed instead, and then determined to give a few vicious rubs before trying that. Slowly, the black river paled. Ah! Sweet relief with grateful thanks surged through me.

With renewed vigour, I repeatedly rubbed the broad ring more fiercely. Wow! Triumph! The black river was invisible, the ring appeared next-to-brand new, and now I felt superabundantly thrilled to see this favoured piece so shiny that I could see my image in it, as on the day I had bought it.

Yes, another pleasurable, fruitful benefit resulting from a nasty disappointing negative — so analogous to the work of Jesus Lord in our lives. By His grace and for our sakes, Jesus sees the repulsive stains and iniquities of our hearts with total compassion and a loving desire to change them into blessed, pure hearts. Just as I felt prompted to work vigorously on my ring to attain to the blessed reflecting result, our Lord wants to work in us continually to the point of seeing His likeness in us.

Jesus is flawlessly pure. Therefore, He is the only model of true purity for us. But obviously, we cannot attain to His purity or any other facet of His perfect nature, without Him. However, God's New Covenant-believing children are blessed. By His loving grace, through Jesus' righteousness, God sees us as silver or gold, even though human ore, personality dross, and sin stains still exist in our hearts.

For example, King David developed fervent, loving, worshipful desires towards God, though his nature was a varied combination. Although he was "a man of war", not chosen to build God's temple (1 Chronicles 28:3), yet by His grace, God sought him out and called him "a man after His own heart" (1 Samuel 13:14), anointing him as king of Israel.

Our redeeming Lord accepts and loves us as we are, even though we need constant refining by His glorious transforming powers, but through His New Covenant grace, He blesses us as His pure-in-heart children.

Oh, yes! We can become pure in heart when we surrender to Lord Jesus and yield to Him as the complete master of His purifying, transforming work in us, from grace to grace, victory to victory, and glory to glory. Hallelujah!

Prayer: Jesus Lord, Your blessings and transforming works are far above any earthly treasure. All praise, thanks, and worship to You, for the consistent pleasure of Your compassionate, purifying, holy love. Amen and Amen!

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