Michael continues, saying that it’s important to take a “check-up from the neck up”. How’s your walk with God? We’re all products of our environment ... of our own intellect and of our secular educations. We’re most like the people with whom we choose to associate, including our earthly families. The Pharisees were proud of their pedigree and traditions of their families. However, Jesus was not impressed by their worldly credentials. He said, blessed are the meek ... those who are humble and teachable... those who forsake worldly pride to approach their Heavenly Father with a heart of humility and love.
What does it mean to be pure in heart? A pure heart has been purified by God according to His Word ... for every word of God is pure like silver tried in the fire seven times. Therefore, God will purify our hearts when they are malleable and moldable from the heat of the crucible and the fire of the furnace. Through the refining of trials, He will purity our hearts to reveal His character within us. Keeping a pure heart will cost us in a world of darkness.. For Believers, it’s not about the cost, it’s about the value. What is it that you value most?
Blessed are those who have been washed in the blood of Christ. He is the Lamb of God without spot and without blemish. He is our Passover lamb whose innocent blood was sacrificed in our stead so that our guilty blood would not condemn us to death without hope and without God. Because Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins, we who have been “born again” of the Spirit are clothed with His righteousness, not the filthy rags of our fallen flesh. The Lord is the one who cleanses and purifies our hearts. Though our sins are as scarlet... because of Christ’s perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf, we shall be white as snow.
The first and great commandment says, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. When our hearts are infused with the love of God, our minds focused and fixed on the things of the spirit of God, then God will work with us and within us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
How do we cleanse and purify our hearts from sin that separates our hearts from God’s heart? The answer is in 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” The purifying and cleansing is in walking with our Lord and in fellowship with believers. Jesus Christ is the light that disinfects us from the contamination of the darkness of this world. As we walk in His light, we are purified through the trials of life. Trials and tribulations reveal God’s character in us. The Apostle Paul said, Iz’ buffet my body to keep it under subjection... I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Thank God that because He has given us the spirit of Christ in us, we can delight ourselves in the Lord ... then when our delight is His delight, he will give us the desires of our heart to walk in fellowship with the Lord, cleansed and purified in His presence that we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ, Michael
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