Heart Change is Key

Read this today and is a good reminder to keep my heart pure and rely on the HS to keep from sinning.

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Does Your Inside Match Your Outside?
by Mark Altrogge

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” MT 5:8

Once a father told his child to sit down. The child refused. Again the father told his child to sit down, and again the child stubbornly refused. Finally, the father said, “If you don’t sit down I’m going to give you a spanking.” The child sat down and said, “I’m sitting down on the outside, but I’m still standing up on the inside!” Reminds me of what Jesus said to the Jewish leaders:

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me…’ MT 15:7-8

Outwardly they honored God. They sang songs and prayed and tithed. But they had no love for God. Their hearts – their inner persons – were impure – they acted religious to be noticed by men, not to please God.  They were hypocrites.

The word hypocrite comes from a word meaning actor. A hypocrite’s an actor, a pretender. He professes some value or belief but his private life does not match it. He’s not pure in heart. So, to be pure in heart means our words match our thoughts. Our outer life matches our inner life.

When God saves us he gives us new hearts:

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Ezekiel 36:26-27

God gives us new hearts that want to follow and obey him and pours his Holy Spirit into us who motivates us to sincere obedience.

A friend once requested I ask him about his TV watching every time he traveled for work. This man sincerely wanted to please Jesus and didn’t want to sin when no one else was watching.

To be pure in heart doesn’t mean we never sin. But it means that now we don’t want to. We hate it when we do, and are grateful for Jesus’ constant cleansing (1 JN 1:9).