The only way we can commit to God is if we totally commit to God. This devotional reading looks at keeping our hearts pure so that we can see God.
Nuggets
- We need a pure heart in order to approach God.
- All we are has to belong to God, so it should be pure.
- We can’t separate heart, soul, and mind.
It is important that our hearts be right when we commit them to God. In order to do that, we have to be pure.
But what does that mean?
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Commit to Grow Our Habits study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
Keeping Our Hearts
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Prov. 4: 23 ESV)
We need a pure heart in order to approach God.
We’ve said before that faith begins in the mind. West agreed, calling it “… an instinctive, rational conviction.”
Faith then has to get to the heart level. West agreed. He wrote, “The righteousness of faith is by the heart.”
Resource
Okay. Let’s piece this together.
- Righteousness is the indwelling goodness that is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments and from which all virtues flow.
- Faith is a gift from God and a work of the Spirit that enhances the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives and distinguishes us from others.
- Our heart is the seat of our thoughts, intellect, will, and affections that produces our character, from which all conduct spring, including controlling our spiritual position.
Glossary
The goodness that results from our relationship with God is built on and by our conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true. We can only have the goodness after we have established the belief in God.
We can only determine this belief by our thoughts, intellect, will, and affections that produces our character. That ties into what we are going to be looking at as engagement.
We are told the greatest commandment is, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk. 12: 30 ESV).
Glossary
That is total engagement.
But what if we make these substitutions? Love the Lord your God with all your thoughts, all your will, all your intellect, and all your affections.
We must be totally engaged in believing God’s saving grace.
Notice it says that we are to love God with all our intellect — all our reasoning. It doesn’t say we have to understand. Our understanding is dependent on too many variables: current knowledge, judgment, and memory to name a few.
We have to keep our hearts away from the bad stuff. We don’t hang with people who can convince us to exit the Sanctification Road. We don’t create idols.
Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
An idol is an object of worship in any form that is below God that takes from God the worship that is His due and is needy and dependent on its worshipers.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
However, the watching doesn’t mean passive activity. We need to be seeking God diligently.
Yeah, that isn’t going to make the Road easy. We need to carefully watch every entrance to our hearts.
We may even physically die while seeking God.
But we know our spiritual condition is much more important than our physical condition.
Yes, a lot of this is self governed. That is because we have free will. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character.
Keeping Our Hearts Pure
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt. 5: 8 ESV)
All we are has to belong to God, so it should be pure.
When we are born, we don’t have a pure heart. Yes, we are made in God’s image, but we are also made in Adam’s image.
Adam let sin into the world. All children born beginning with Seth were born with a sinful nature. [Adam] fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen. 5: 3 ESV).
So, somewhere along the line, our impure hearts need to change to be pure hearts. We do this through salvation. Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
Glossary
We accept God’s gift of salvation, and our hearts are regenerated and purified. Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
You see, purity doesn’t just mean the absence of sin. It means the presence of God.
Now, don’t derail the heart discussion by the eye discussion. This doesn’t mean see as in visually see. Hull said it means we “… see him spiritually, his qualities of mind and heart.”
Resource
Impurity — sin — clouds the eyes of our hearts so that we cannot see God. That is why non-believers can’t see Him.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
We want to be pure so we can see God.
Tying It All Together
We can’t separate heart, soul, and mind.
Okay. The title of this sermon doesn’t match what is actually written in the sermon, so let me try to figure it out.
Mede entitled his sermon God Only Judgeth the Heart. That is really about all he has to say on God.
But let’s process. We’re talking about committing to engage our hearts, soul, mind, and strength.
- Our heart is the seat of our thoughts, intellect, will, and affections that produces our character, from which all conduct spring, including controlling our spiritual position.
- Our soul is our spiritual part that is immortal. Because the soul is eternal, it continues to think and feel.
- Our mind is a component of the soul that controls our will — where we process and make judgments and decisions.
Our mind controls our will, that part of us that acts according to our principles. Our principles are governed by our character.
But our soul is the part of us that is eternal. Yet, it must be congruent with what our heart is. Our hearts can’t be evil while our souls are good.
So, I can see where it says our hearts are going to be judged. What I can’t see is the only.
Good took a different turn when he tied heart, mind, and soul together. He wrote, “By the ‘heart’ we are to understand the inward part of man, comprehending the mind and soul with all their faculties and affections, purposes and inclinations, the secret recesses into which mortal eye cannot penetrate.”
Resource
If heart comprehends mind and soul, that would tell me that heart isn’t the seat.
The Christian Age says that our intellect is controlled by our heart. To me, that doesn’t mean the heart is following the mind. If nothing else, it would put them on equal footing.
Resource
Let’s think about this a second. Our actions may not truthfully reflect who we are in our hearts.
Even Scriptures tells us not to trust our hearts. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17: 9 ESV).
If we can’t understand our own hearts, how are we going to understand God things?
Barrow said that we are to police our thoughts. This is how we learn who we really are. We don’t hide from ourselves that way.
Resource
That would make the hierarchy soul, heart, and mind.
But it also tells me that the three are intricately connected.
Hold the phone, though. On what are we going to be judged? Our relationship with Jesus as our Savior.
Not our actions. Not even our character.
Have we ABCDed or not?
Where is that at? In our soul, because believing in Jesus has given our soul eternal life.
So, yes. The soul is the only thing that is going to be judged.
Making the Connections #1
Neglecting our hearts causes sin to enter them. Our actions and thoughts open the door for Satan to move right in.
We choose our words and our intentions. They show us where our hearts are.
Emmons summed it up this way. He wrote, “The Christian warfare consists in watching, guarding, and keeping the heart.
Resource
Making the Connections #2
We can’t be only concerned about our actions. They aren’t the most important thing about being disciples.
We have to have our hearts set on God.
Our character extends from the intents of our hearts. If our hearts are not set on God, our actions are still considered evil — sinful.
Lament tried to help us with this. He wrote, “Actions are the outward symbols or expressions of virtue and vice, not virtue and vice themselves.”
Resource
Just doing random acts of kindness does not make us pure in God’s eyes. We can’t separate our actions from the motives for which we do them. Our motives must be we are doing them to honor God.
How Do We Apply This?
- Submit our passions to God.
- Watch to keep our hearts stayed on God.
- Watch our thoughts and actions.
- Reroute when we take an exit off the Sanctification Road.
- Keep our minds focused on godly things.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to guide and bless us.
- Be ever on guard.
- Keep our focus on God’s important business.
- Avoid sinful things.
- Evaluate ourselves.
- Keep our hearts full and pure.
- Don’t stick our noses into things that don’t concern us.
- Love, believe, and submit in humility.
- Seek God.
- Deny ourselves and follow God.
- Remember what Satan says is reality really isn’t.
- Remain sober minded.
- Pray continually.
- Don’t be lazy.
- Watch the company we keep.
- Steer clear of sin by filling our hearts with the goodness of God.
- Nip sin in the bud.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
Resources
Father God. We want our hearts to keep our minds pure. We want our hearts to be pure so that our souls will be able to come to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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