Sunday, November 9, 2014

Blessed Man 9

 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." I am out of my element more here than anywhere else in the kingdom of God. If you've ever watched the television program Finding Bigfoot, you may be familiar with my predicament. The hunters are convinced Bigfoot is out there. They have seen his footprints and heard his call. However, the creature always remains just out of sight and reach of his pursuers. Purity of heart eludes my grasp in much the same way. I've seen purity; I've heard it; I've even lived alongside it, but I cannot capture it for myself.

Skeptics say that Bigfoot hunters want to prove its existence so badly that they see Bigfoot behind every tree or hear Bigfoot in every rustling of the wind. The skeptics may be right--or perhaps they are simply blind to all with which they disagree. The pure in heart are blessed with the gift of seeing God in everything and everywhere they look. The pure in heart are life's ultimate lemonade stand operators.

The pure in heart have a single true love that comes before all else, is manifested in complete obedience, and for which all else is sacrificed. Their one love is God and they see God operating in them at every turn. Don't get me wrong, I love God: I have made sacrifices for God, but I still catch myself doing stuff just for me and when I do happen to stop and think about it; it's likely I didn't consult God to start with. I regularly find myself scratching my head wondering, "Where's God in all this?" As for complete obedience--let's not talk about that.

The scripture says that to the pure all things are pure, but to the vile and the unbelieving is nothing pure. That puts me at an embarrassingly low place on the purity scale. In the normal course of a day people lie to me; try to manipulate me; threaten me; cast aspersions on my skills and generally endeavor to blow smoke up my behind. When someone tells me that there is good in everyone, I'm quick to reply that they haven't met everyone.

In keeping with their singleness of purpose, the pure in heart are congruent in thought, word, and action. Which is to say, they not only walk the talk, but their thinking agrees 100% with where they are going. In the pure of heart there is no guile; what you see is actually what you get. Purity of heart has no place for hidden agendas, or ulterior motives. The truth is their rock--whatsoever they think, that they say and do.

Most people are afraid to admit that we treat the truth more like clay to be shaped to suit our purposes or constructed to fit the need of the moment. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is not what lawyers are after in court, but it is the way the pure in heart answer every man. " But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. "


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