By David ReayFriday 21 Oct 2022LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. (THE MESSAGE)
This is a paraphrase of the familiar Beatitude: “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” It is a reminder that discerning what God is about in our lives is affected by the state of our hearts and minds. Purity of heart is not simply about sexual restraint. It is about having a heart directed towards honouring God. A heart that, despite its fallibility, longs to please God. It is a heart that truly believes the pleasures of God are greater than the pleasures of sin.
The writer John Piper says that sin is what we do when our hearts are not satisfied with God. We become cluttered with all sorts of desires and aspirations that we figure offer us a better chance of life satisfaction. This clutter keeps us from enjoying the pleasures of God. We don’t see the issues clearly. To change the illustration, our hearts and minds are full of static interference. God is speaking to us, wanting to shape our lives his way, opening up doors to growth and service. But we don’t see it or hear it because of the static and the clutter.
God’s grace and love are so profound and overwhelming that we can only take it all in if our hearts are truly seeking him. So it is right and good that we regularly ask him to unclutter our cluttered hearts so we can see the work he is wanting to do in our lives and in the wider world. The less clutter, the more clarity.
Blessings
David