“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
— Matthew 5:8
Pure in heart?” you may be saying. “I guess I won’t be seeing God!” Okay, so none of us is totally “pure” inside. The stuff going on around us — gossiping girls, annoying boys, teachers having bad days — makes it pretty hard to constantly think, feel, do, and say lovely things.
Jesus is saying you can only come close to that in two ways.
One, you have to work on it. Deliberately turn away from gossip, even when it’s really juicy and could get you a lot of attention. Patch up a quarrel, even though you KNOW you’re right and it kills you to give in. When you do that, you see a little bit of what God is like, because God is always pure that way. Doing the absolute right thing makes you purer in heart.
And two, Jesus says, let God work in you. Pray for purity. Make space inside yourself for God. Pay attention. He knows you can’t do it all by yourself and he doesn’t expect you to. Let him purify you. It’s such a blessing.
More to Explore: Psalm 28:6
Girl Talk: What’s one thing you could do today to clean up your heart a little bit?
God Talk: “Lord, you know my heart better than anyone else, even better than me. Show me the areas I need to work on. Amen.”
From That Is So Me by Nancy Rue