Clearing The Clutter — A LifeWords Devotion

Matthew 5:8

God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. (NLT)

In our supermarket shopping, we will come across labelling such as “pure sugar” or “pure milk”. Meaning there is no contamination with foreign matter. What we see is what we get. This is a bit like what Jesus is referring to as purity of heart. It is single minded devotion to God, not cluttered up with all sorts of other things.

We can be so easily distracted. We dabble in discipleship. We have so many priorities and passions that we lose sight of the priorities and passions of God. It is not that these many distractions are in themselves wrong. Rather they can get to crowd out what is to be our overriding concern which Jesus has earlier described as an appetite for godly living.

So much consumes our time and energies that we fail to see God at work. Our God is always active in our lives, but it is as if our many other concerns dull our vision. Our appetite for God is spoiled by all the junk food we indulge in. We resist this not by trying extra hard, but by recognising the pleasures of God are more rewarding and more desirable. We resist this by cultivating a strong desire to see God at work around us.

If we fail to see such work, it is not because God has taken leave of us. It is because we are distracted dabblers or wayward prodigals. We cannot find God because we aren’t genuinely wanting him. As the saying goes, a thief doesn’t find a policeman simply because he has no desire to find him.