“Blessed are the pure (katharos) in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8.
“You are already clean (katharos) because of the Word which I have spoken to you.” John 15:3.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Let us talk about keeping your heart pure. You will be much happier if you do. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8. Which, of course, implies the impure will not. It is a prerequisite for seeing Me and knowing Me. So, if you long to see My face and are seeking to have My face shine on you, you should take this to heart, by which I mean you need to be serious about and give attention to this.
“How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your Word. With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me wander from Your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.” Psalm 119:9. You guard and keep your walk pure by keeping in accord with My Word. You cleanse your heart by My Word. You store My Word in your heart and refuse to wander from My Word by permitting unclean thoughts and words to be stored there. No admixture.
How do you cleanse your heart then if you have been storing unclean things in it for years and are still hoarding up more? I give you the means to do this and, depending on the diligence and energy you give to it, you can clean it out quite quickly or take years to do it and never get it all out until you take this seriously. But it is a matter of life or death, of blessing or cursing, of light or darkness, of seeing Me or not seeing Me, of peace or agitation and stress, of joy or bitterness. You choose, but I advise to choose life that you and your descendants may live the life you were born to live. For My Word is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life, and by this word you will prolong your days. Deuteronomy 32:47.
I give you all you need to walk in divine health and peace and I will help you with this, but whether you guard your heart and keep it clean is ultimately up to you. It takes self-denial of your flesh (meaning your emotions) and some effort and it is not done just once and that is it, it is a constant stand of vigilance you must take over your thoughts and words. It is like a watchman over a city. He has to be alert or the enemy will sneak in and end up taking the city.
How do you clean your heart? The same way Jesus did for His disciples and the same way He does it for His Body, the Church, He sanctifies her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word. Ephesians 5:26. And He told His disciples that they were clean already, because of the Word He had spoken to them. John 15:3.
My Word is pure and My Word will make you pure if you will put My Word in your heart and live in accord with My Word. Whenever, night or day, an unclean thought comes into your heart, you must quickly wash it out with My Word. And what are unclean thoughts? Not just lustful impure thoughts of sexual immorality and greed, but also anger against yourself or others, hate, bitterness, fear, depression, weakness, doubt, unbelief, jealousy, envy, grief, hopelessness, helplessness, shame, guilt, blame, reproach, dislike, sloth, and the list goes on but I am sure you get the idea. In other words, any thought that brings you out of light and peace into darkness, turmoil, stress, anxiety, fear, addiction, and the like.
For example, if you have thoughts of hate for another, you must stop dwelling on that by feeding it with further thoughts of their bad behavior and disgusting self, instead you must evict those by not allowing yourself to dwell on or with them and stop feeding them. You must fire them from your employ by hiring new employees, so to speak, by calling in My Spirit to fill you with My love and simply hand over that person or situation to Me and ask Me to take care of it and deliver you from its hold on you, and then, as I tell you in My Word think on, dwell with and on thoughts that are true, lovely, and worthy of honor, and you do well to live in accord with My Word for I will give you the grace to do so (My grace is sufficient for you to overcome). You may be wondering what lovely thing you can think about, but if you ask Me to tell you about My plans for your life, I will, and then you can dwell on those. Because beautiful indeed is your inheritance and My plans for you are for your shalom and not evil, a future and a hope, and they outnumber the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky for they are for now and for eternity. But if instead you just bog down in thoughts of hate, disgust, anger, and bitterness, you will never hear or fulfill the good plans that I have prepared for you in advance in Christ Jesus that you might walk in them.
Dream with Me about fruitful and good works that you will do. Like Jacob’s son Joseph did. He clung to the dreams I had given him even when he was betrayed by his brothers and sold as a slave in a foreign land and then betrayed again and thrown in prison. He refused to bog down in hate and bitterness and regret. You know this by his words in prison when he explained why he was there, “For I was in fact kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing that they should have put me into this dungeon (pit).” Genesis 40:15. No talk of his brothers or of the lies of Potiphar’s wife. And you know he never told Pharaoh anything about his brothers because when his brothers came to Egypt, Pharaoh was pleased to receive them by simply knowing they were brothers to Joseph, the man he had grown to trust and to love. If Joseph had told him what they had done to him, Pharaoh would have not received them kindly, to put it mildly.
Joseph refused to dwell on the unclean thoughts that would have stolen his joy, peace, and promotion, but instead chose to walk with Me with a clean heart.
And consider Leah, the unwanted and hated wife of Jacob. She tried hard to please Jacob and not be bitter about his hate for her, she tried to please him. But when he just would not be pleased, she, on the birth of her fourth son, decided to stop dwelling on the hurt and the hate, and also the envy of her sister, and turn to Me in grateful praise for all the good she had in her four sons and in being married to a man she loved. “Now,” she said, “I will praise the LORD.” Genesis 29:35. And that son, Judah, birthed in praise I made the ancestor of Jesus according to the flesh. Praise birthed her dream for love and fruitfulness. And later, after the death of Rachel, Jacob called her Joseph’s mother and Jacob wanted to be buried with Leah, not Rachel. Give up the hate and jealousy and you can have your dreams. Think on these things.
My grace is sufficient for you to overcome anything, for in weakness My power reaches perfection. It is when you are weak that you can be strong. You can do this with the help of My grace. Cleanse your heart of the clutter, the hoarding, the unclean thoughts, they make it hard for you to move about and they block out the light.
And thinking on what is true and lovely does not mean you should allow impurity and sin in your home in others. You need to go after that too. Overturn it and throw it out. Like Jesus did with the money changers in the temple. But make sure you clean out your heart first before you go after the others, and always without hate or anger. “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Jude 1:20-23. And I, the God of peace, will be with you. “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” Jude 1:24-25.
Now read this and I know you will understand how to begin and keep up your heart cleanse, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:4-9. Paul had a lot to be bitter and angry about when his former friends and colleagues sought to imprison and kill him, and ultimately did, but he refused to allow those thoughts in himself, instead he sought to enlighten them to the truth of the good news of Jesus Christ so they too might be saved and come to know the truth. He thought on My goodness to him and felt sorrow that they did not have what he did.
Remember that. You would do well to ponder the same. Why so much favor to you? Because I love you and you are precious in My sight. You sought Me. You responded to My call. Others have not. I am grateful and will reward you. Keep your heart pure as I am pure so you can see Me as I am.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8. That is a promise and it is “yes” to you in Jesus, but you have a part too. The word “pure” there is the same Greek word that is translated “prune” or “clean” in the fifteenth chapter of John when Jesus spoke of how you are the branches and He is the vine, which is all about remaining in My Word and letting it remain in you. The Greek word is “katharos,” which means clean, pure, unstained, and properly, “without admixture;” what is separated (purged), hence “clean” (pure) because unmixed (without undesirable elements).
I love you. Refuse to dwell on anything but My love for you. Do not let Satan steal the love of God out of your heart by his schemes, unclean spirits, and fiery darts. Cast them out. You are free born.
See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 1 John 3:1-3.