Pure Heart

<br>Craig Smith<br> Matthew 5:8<br>Over and over I hear it again<br>That the Father desires pure heart<br>Not to seek earthly treasure or the favor of man<br>But to be found with pureness of heart<br>Chorus<br>Pure heart is what the Father desires<br>Holy heart purified by God`s holy fire<br>Broken heart, proven to be faithful and true<br>Fashion in me a heart that`s thirsting for You<br>Search ever chamber, expose them to me<br>Create motives of honor and simplicity<br>May you find faithfulness, integrity<br>A heart which is worthy for Your eyes to see<br>Chorus<br>My only ambition is to stand before You<br>And find I was pleasing in Your sight<br>And obedient child of God, faithful and true<br>Found with pureness of heart<br>Chorus<br>The pure heart is free of mixed motives. It is one emptied of self, and<br>filled with total devotion to the Lord.--Craig Smith<br>In the natural realm, when we speak of the heart, we are referring to<br>the chief physical organ in the human body. Though failure of other<br>human organs can result in death, no other part plays a more important<br>life sustaining role than that of the heart.<br>This is also true in the spiritual realm. Throughout Biblical history,<br>the heart has represented the man himself. The very center of his<br>every emotion and appetite. It is no wonder then, that the Lord requires<br>we love Him with all our heart. A heart wholly devoted to the Lord is a<br>heart which is pure, it has no admixture. It is not divided, polluted, or<br>contaminated by foreign substances.<br>The Psalmist tells us (Ps 51:16,17) God is not pleased with sacrifices and<br>burnt offerings. In fact, He told the Israelites, the very ones He set<br>up the sacrificial system through, that He no longer took pleasure in<br>their burnt offerings, and that the offerings had even become<br>"worthless." (Is 1:11-13) The problem was not in His system, but was<br>instead in the hearts of His people. He knew their hearts, and their<br>hearts were void of the necessary total devotion and love for Him. They<br>were merely going through a heartless motion of meaningless religious<br>ceremony. The result, "When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will<br>hide my eyes from you, yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not<br>listen." (Is 1:15) He then appeals to them to repent of their sins and by<br>doing so, even though their "sins are a scarlet, they will be washed<br>white as snow..." I cannot help but mention the close parallel in<br>Israel`s situation then, with the present situation in our western<br>culture today. According to various polling systems, the majority of<br>people living in the United States have a belief in God. However, for a<br>majority, we do not seem to have a great effect on our society. Could it<br>be that a great many of those polled are jus going through "meaningless<br>religious ceremony"? We would all do well to compare our present<br>relationships with Christ with the early churches relationships to<br>Christ.<br>Once again, what pleases the Father is the whole heart devoted to Him.<br>The acceptable sacrifices to the Lord are no longer "burnt offerings"<br>but instead "...a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart..." The word<br>"broken" in these passages refers to a crushing into the form of powder.<br>If you were to take a small stone and toss it into a swift stream of<br>water, the stone would resist the flow and quickly sink to the bottom.<br>However, you could recover the same small stone, pound it into a fine<br>powder, and then pour it from your hand into the stream and even though<br>it is the same mineral substance, it no longer resists the stream`s flow,<br>but instead floats wherever the stream carries it.<br>In many ways we are like the small stone. With selfish, unsubmissive<br>hearts, we resist God`s flow or direction and find ourselves sinking.<br>However, if we are wise, we will approach the Lord and ask Him to reveal<br>any and hurtful object in our hearts. Reveal anything that divides us<br>from a right relationship with Him and restore us to the joy of our<br>salvation. May our prayers be that He will crush us into submissive,<br>totally devoted hearts. Suddenly we will realize we are flowing with<br>Him and being totally fulfilled by our relationship with Him, instead of<br>living in the strife of resistance. We will never know total<br>fulfillment, until He has from us a total heart, a whole heart, a pure<br>heart.--Craig Smith