Purify Me Jesus!

Hunger makes food precious. Failure makes success precious. Poverty and want make wealth precious. Sickness makes health precious. Dirt makes bathing feel precious. And the burden of guilt and sin makes purity of heart precious.

Purity changes you. Don’t worry; you won’t lose your uniqueness. Through purity of heart, however, we shed the parts of ourselves that are cruel, retaliatory, vengeful, and destructive; the parts we never liked anyway. Purity of heart brings out the real, holy, God-wanted-you-to-be version of ourselves. Living by a bunch of rules and regulations does not make our hearts pure, and we know it.

At best, rules only make us try harder! But don’t get this backwards: God gave rules not to earn purity, but to show us how to let Him work in our hearts, shaping us to become more like Him. It is an honor to be like God, the God who purifies without partiality. As it is written: “And He made no distinction between us (Jews) and them (Gentiles), purifying their hearts by faith. He purifies hearts by faith.” (Acts 15:9).

The Scriptures connect purity of heart with faith. It is through faith in God’s atoning work that we find the freedom, transformation, and lasting purity our hearts long for, not by the labor of our hands, not when our good works outweigh our bad, but by the precious blood of Jesus.

Let’s be real: purity of heart does not make us immune to mistakes, forgetfulness, or even negligence.

But it does change how we respond: we no longer defend or justify our errors. Any notion of purity that makes us feel “superior” while others are “below” is a distortion and rarely reflects biblical purity. True heart purity changes us, leading us to treat others with more consideration while upholding our values. We are transformed, yet we retain our uniqueness and humanity. Why? Because purity of heart is the essence of Christian identity, character, and testimony. It enables us to love God with all our heart and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves; I didn’t say that Deuteronomy 30:6 and Mark 12:30–31 did! Reflection Question: How does purity of heart affect the way you treat others, especially those you might feel “different” from or in conflict with?

SELAH: Purity of heart changes you, not by taking away your uniqueness, but by removing the parts of yourself you don’t need anyway.