Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God. Matthew 5:8, NIV

To understand purity of heart and seeing God, we must look deeper than the surface of things, or else we will misunderstand Jesus and fall into the same trap as the Pharisees.

To be pure is to be innocent and guiltless before God, and that is what we receive by faith (Col 3:13-14, Eph 2:8-9) when we become a Christian, which might lead us to believe we automatically are pure in heart. However, sin is a barrier to seeing God (Isa 59:1-2), so if there is anything more to do, it would be guarding our heart from the temptations of sin and training it to desire the righteousness of God. The problem is this becomes “sin management” and does not incline our hearts toward God in the least.

For instance, the Pharisees kept themselves pure and were very “good” people, as far as the appearance of addressing sin goes. Yet Jesus said, “I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven!” (Matt 5:20, NLT). Jesus was explaining to us the core issues that go deeper than outward obedience. I believe it is vitally important to look at the example of the Pharisees, and to be extremely wary of assuming that we would never be like them, because we are often so much like them.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. (Matt 23:23, NASB)

Jesus rebuked them for neglecting the more important matters, but notice that we are not to neglect the smaller matters, either! Sin does matter, obedience is important. Yet, the law was never meant to save us, rather it was to direct our attention to the mercy of God, and to Jesus (Heb 10:1-18). Our obedience, the acts of taking off old ways and putting on new ones, must also involve a change of our heart. Note how Paul describes our daily sanctification:

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph 4:22-25, NIV)

How often do we skip the “made new in the attitude of our minds” part and focus on the sinful acts? Doing this will always make us like Pharisees. Remember, their partial obedience lead to total failure regarding salvation!

Peter said to the church, “By obedience to the truth, having purified yourselves for sincere love of the brothers, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,” (1 Pet 1:22, HCSB) showing that our purifying obedience should lead us to what matters most: loving one another. This is the command that Jesus left us, to love one another (John 13:34-35, 15:12-13). When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus added the second, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” because our loving one another is how we show our love for God.

The problem is that we can do acts of kindness, even to our enemies, and still be checking a box on our obedience list. This is further complicated because seeking to be pure, not only in deed but also in heart, will always involve doing God’s righteousness. So how do we get to purity of heart, then?

I believe the answer is in seeing God. To see God is to be close to him, at a very intimate place, one we reach by first opening a door that is only opened by humbly coming to God, recognizing how he shows us his love, and then showing others that same love.

Go back through the beatitudes and notice that we gain access to the kingdom of heaven by making ourselves poor and acknowledging our need for God, and in doing so we see our sin for what it is and we mourn, and recognizing our humble place before our Creator leads us to become meek toward others and give up all our rights in this life. This humility leads to a greater understanding of God, his righteous character, and a hunger for it grows within us. By this time, we have recognized our desperate need for the magnificent mercy of our Lord, a mercy that we receive only when we give that mercy to others, which opens the way to true intimacy with God, a purifying of our hearts through humility toward God and toward others.

If all this seems way too academic and theoretical, this should make it as simple as it gets:

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matt 6:14-15, ESV)

We cannot be intimate with God until our sins are forgiven (Eph 2:13), and our sins are not forgiven if we are not willing to forgive others. “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” (Rom 5:8, NET), so we also should show our love to others by forgiving them, holding nothing against them. Forgiveness is not, “I’m sorry,” but a heartfelt, humbling repentance that desires to make things right, and to not wrong again. Read Psalm 51 for a poetic expression of someone asking for forgiveness.

Our hearts are pure when we have let go of all our offenses against others and have sought reconciliation with all those we have offended (Matt 5:21-26). And when our hearts are pure, we can see God clearly, face to face, experiencing the glory of his presence, his character, his love. Oh, what a blessing! May I hold nothing against anyone and be as forgiving as our Lord is to me!

Blessings! – Shamar Covenant