Matthew 5:8 (KJV) Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
We often speak of the heart as the center of our love. “I love you with all my heart”, is spoken to those that we cherish greatly. I recall the story of the mother that would pull each of her children aside and tell them “I love you the most. You are my favorite but don’t tell the others they will be upset.” She told each of her five children this and throughout their lives each child believed that they were her favorite and kept the secret faithfully. When the Mother passed away the children were making plans for her funeral service when the youngest told the others that she was her Mother’s favorite, each sibling then shared the many times that they had been told the exact same thing. What a shock! I am sure that in the Mother’s mind she did love every one of her children “with all her heart”. But deep down inside of this loving mother was the knowledge that she could not give all her heart to more than one child. Thus she had them all keep the secret.
We are like that with God. We love Him deeply and want to walk the path’s of this life hand in hand with our Heavenly Father. We want God to love us and abide with us. But there are others, those things that demand our time and become the object of our affection. We bring them into our lives and allow them to possess a part of our heart. When we come to Jesus we compartmentalize our lives placing each “love” into its own secret place. Life has a way of allowing us to accept what we know we shouldn’t and soon those secret places and loves seem normal, just a part of life. Like a man who has two wives, two families, two homes and orders his life so that each doesn’t know about the other. To the rest of us that seems burdensome and peculiar but he has lived with the secret for so long that it seems right. That is until the two families meet.
To have a pure heart, a single eye, requires to be honest about the secret places in our lives. We know that when our two loves meet only one can survive as the “one true love”. Perhaps the road to being pure in heart must start with an abundant dose of honesty. There is an old song that states, “Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid. Your heart does the Spirit control…” The altar is a good place to start in our search for a pure heart but only if we are honest about the things we have kept in our secret place.
2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV) If my people, which are called by my name,
shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their
wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin,
and will heal their land.
In Leviticus 10:1 Scripture
records the story of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu. They were
priests that had been sanctified for service in the House of the Lord.
Son’s of the High Priest, they knew the ways of God and were charged
with service in the Temple yet they decided to “do things their own
way”. These men had grown up in Egypt. They had watched the multitudes
throng the pagan temples and were familiar with the pleasures of the
world. Only eight verses after this passage God warns the priests to
not use strong drink when they go in to the tabernacle of the
congregation leaving us to believe that perhaps these two had been drunk
when they decided to bring “strange fire” and offer it unto the Lord.
Nadab and Abihu were charged with leading the people of God in worship.
They took it upon themselves to reinvent worship and do it their own
way. God considered this “strange fire”. When they offered fire that
was not from the Brazen Altar, God not only rejected their worship He
sent out His own fire and devoured them. It is an interesting note that
verse 5 tells us they were carried away in their coats. Truly God
punishment for the offering of strange fire was to send a “strange fire”
that devoured them but left them intact.
This happens all too
often in our churches and lives. We find that using the world’s methods
and practices are more appealing to the masses so we incorporate them
into our worship. We strive to please men more than God. The true
tragedy of this situation is that the tares grow right along with the
wheat and while from an earthly perspective the church seems to be okay,
the exterior appears healthy, the interior is as dead man’s bones.
Aaron is upset with death of his two sons and Moses speaks these words
to him, “This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in
them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified.”
God demands that those that will seek His face and draw close to Him
be sanctified. It is in this way that God is glorified. I have seen
ministers that insisted people wear ties and dresses on the platform to
try and bring about some form of sanctification. Whitewash! God is
interested more in the fire we are offering than the coat we are
wearing.
Revival comes from God! He is the only one that can
send it and heal our land. Yet, God has declared that we must humble
ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways. We must
put away the whitewash and worldliness and worship God in Spirit and in
Truth. It is the only way to approach Him. Don’t be fooled by the
outward success of dead worship. Seek the power of knowing God at His
altar. That is where we can truly turn from our wicked ways.
