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CHAPTER 1

A Pure Heart

We don't hear the word purity much today except in descriptions of cleaning agents and snow-covered landscapes. We do hear the word spoken more frequently in the Christian community, but usually only as it applies to sexual purity. We have lost sight of all it means to be pure as God intended. So what does it mean? Purity is much more than moral behavior. Purity is first and foremost a matter of the heart. To be pure is to be single-minded. It is to have a single goal, a single focus, and a single purpose for ourselves and our lives. That is biblical purity, and from it springs moral behavior — the good we do with our bodies. At its core, purity is having a heart for the Lord that isn't watered down or polluted by lesser things.

The apostle James wrote, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded." According to James, a double-minded woman spends her passion going after what this world offers. In contrast, Jesus describes a very different sort of passion: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment" (Matt. 22:37–38). Elsewhere Jesus attaches a promise to purity: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). To see God is to know the joy of living in close relationship with him. To see him is also to enjoy Spirit-filled, biblically guided direction and guidance for all of life. A woman who is pure in this way realizes an ever-increasing ability to rightly apply God's Word to the little day-to-day things.

Putting Christ first is the essence of purity. That is why Jesus' words in the beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," are the starting point for any woman who is serious about being pure. But the beatitude is not only our starting point; it is also the place to end. Jesus' words form the basis for the kind of purity that will endure for a lifetime. Viewing purity from a biblical perspective takes our understanding of what it means to be pure beyond mere outward conduct to a whole new level — a deeper level. And if we approach purity as Jesus describes it, we will discover that our battle to be pure in body, as well as in mind and spirit, comes much more easily.

We women struggle, often with little success, to master particular sins — outward displays of impurity. Perhaps that's because we have been trying to clean up our act while failing to see the impurity in our heart. What are we to do? We can't clean our own heart. Besides, the extent of its dirt and sin is beyond our comprehension. A heart is made pure as Christ washes and cleans it. I once heard someone pray, "Lord, wash my heart." That's a good prayer. But becoming pure in heart doesn't end with prayer. It comes as we lean on the purity of Christ, on his perfect work for us. It comes as we lean on grace. It comes as we acknowledge our utter inability to become pure women and our need for Christ to make us clean and to purify us through and through. Putting Christ first takes care of everything else.

A Pure Woman Is Clear-sighted

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matthew 5:8

Jesus chose to begin his great sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, with a list of blessings. There are nine, to be exact, and each blessing is given to a specific sort of person. All too often we are quick to pass over this initial part of the sermon, which is called the Beatitudes. We want to get on to the practical parts of Jesus' teaching, where he talks about things like marriage and money and dealing with difficult emotions (Matthew 5–7). Perhaps we are quick to skim over the Beatitudes because we don't quite understand exactly what Jesus was getting at. The sixth beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," is a case in point. What does it mean to be pure in heart? And how can we actually see God?

When we think of purity, sexual purity is usually the first thing that comes to mind. But that's not Jesus' emphasis here in his sermon. He emphasizes heart purity. Not for a minute is Jesus diminishing the importance of sexual purity and all we do with our bodies, but he emphasizes heart purity because it is the root from which all other purity springs. If we are pure in heart, we will be pure in body too. A pure heart is an undivided heart, one with a single purpose. A pure heart is one so set on God that it isn't watered down by lesser things. Does that describe your heart? It does if your driving passion in life is to know God and live in close fellowship with him.

To the pure in heart Jesus promised the blessing of sight. But he wasn't talking about a visual image; he was talking about comprehension. The more focused on God we are, the more of him we will know; and the better we know him, the more blessed we will be, because we will see that the most awesome, powerful being in the universe is also kind, loving, and relational.

The purer we are, the more we will see. But we miss out on the blessing of sight because we don't have pure hearts. Our hearts are divided. We want God, but we also want the comforts and pleasures that the world offers. The things of this life will ultimately never satisfy us because we were designed to find real fulfillment in God alone. A woman who is pure in heart is able to enjoy the good things God puts in her life, but those things don't hold her heart. God alone has that place because her view of his goodness, love, and wonder is much less cluttered up with the junk of the world.

If we are missing out on this blessedness, it doesn't have to be that way. We don't have to spend our lives running after lesser and short-lived ways of feeling satisfied with life. If this weren't true, Jesus wouldn't have given the beatitude. But he did give it, and he holds it out to us today. Do we really want it? That's the question.

A Pure Woman Has One Desire

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

PSALM 73:25

There is nothing on earth that I desire besides you" — with these words the psalmist gives us the ultimate definition of a pure heart. Can you echo his words? Is there truly nothing we desire besides God? Perhaps you want to be like this, but you just aren't there yet, and you aren't sure how to get there. Maybe you have tasted it, but you can't seem to hang on to it. Life's pressures mount and close in around you, and the desire for relief crowds out the desire for God himself.

God wants us to know what it's like to desire nothing but him. That's why he allows us to find such little lasting satisfaction with the world's toys and joys. We get something we've always wanted, or a dream comes true, yet it quickly becomes just part of life's routine. So what do we do? We set out to lay hold of some new earthbound pleasure. We don't stop to consider that our inability to find lasting happiness in earthly blessings and personal dreams is because God designed us for something else. Our dissatisfaction is his way of wooing us to find our all in him.

We don't have to remain dissatisfied. We can know God the way he wants to be known. The way to get there is the same way the psalmist Asaph got there, and Psalm 73 recounts his journey. At one point, he was just like most of us at times — dissatisfied with life. In fact, he was more than simply dissatisfied; he was resentful. He looked around and saw that people who make no effort to follow God seem to get more from this life than the faithful. It made no sense to him, and Asaph was resentful — and jealous. "As for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked" (vv. 2–3).

Asaph goes on verse after verse recounting the many outward blessings that seem to come to worldly people. We can see from his detailed account that he'd spent a lot of time comparing his life to theirs, and he felt that his life came up short. All his comparing was nothing more than grumbling, and it warped his view of God, as complaining always does. Grumbling against what God ordains in our lives makes him seem small in our eyes, and, of course, when God seems small to us, we aren't going to desire him very much. That's where Asaph had allowed himself to go, and that left him focused squarely on the pleasures, the wealth, and the seeming security enjoyed by those who pour their energies into maximizing what they can from this life. "Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches" (v. 12). Asaph felt gypped, and his obsession shaped his thinking: "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence" (v. 13).

Do you ever feel that way? Are there times when you question whether Christian discipleship is worth it? Jesus said that those who follow him may have to forego much of what this world has to offer. He also said that the benefits of following him ultimately outweigh the cost, but when the going gets rough, we begin to have second thoughts. Oh, most of us don't turn our backs on Jesus and refuse to walk with him any longer; what we do instead is try to have it both ways. We get up in the morning and read our Bible and practice outward obedience, but we are pouring as much if not more of our time and energy into comfort, pleasure, success, and being loved by people. When it comes right down to it, we want God, but we want what everyone else has too.

What turned the psalmist around? How did he go from an envious grumbler to a pure-hearted worshiper? The turning point came for Asaph when he stopped looking around him and began to look up. He went into "the sanctuary of God" (v. 17) and from there he was able to see the reality of things. Looking at God brings everything else into proper focus. When we look at things through the lens of our personal perspective, everything we see is going to be warped. But the only way to know that our perspective is misshapen is by looking at everything through the lens of Scripture. Asaph found it in the sanctuary; we find it in God's Word. Like Asaph, if we look through the right lens we will be able to see that those who have God have everything, and those who do not have God really have nothing.

We get pure hearts by looking away from the world and up to God, and we see him in Scripture. As we do that, we will find what Asaph found:

When my soul was embittered,
A Pure Woman Is Single-minded

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts,you double-minded.

JAMES 4:8

There is a strong link between our hearts and our minds. In fact, Scripture doesn't really differentiate between the two. What we think is our heart. Therefore, a double-minded woman is one with a divided heart, and a divided heart isn't a pure heart. James's point is that a double-minded woman is literally two-minded; she is divided between two ways of thinking, and, as a result, she is ruled by competing options.

The problem is that we are all double-minded. We want God and a husband, God and a better house, or God and a more fulfilling job. The and is what makes us double-minded. We well know that many of the things we want are good things. God has designed us to enjoy many of them, and he delights to give them to us. So it's not the actual wanting that makes us divided. It's the fact that we believe we must have them in order to be happy. If we believe there is something — anything — essential for our well-being besides God, we are double- minded.

This seems to fly in the face of reason, doesn't it? After all, certain things are necessary for our well-being, such as food, shelter, fellowship, and health. We must have some things in order to live, and we must pursue them in order to survive. But James's point is that even survival isn't the most important thing in life. If we live with an eternal perspective, earthly happiness and even survival won't own us.

The apostle Paul said, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. … Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" (Phil. 1:21–23). Earthly happiness — and even survival — were low on Paul's priority list. Unlike Paul, when we talk wishfully about departing this life it's usually because we are depressed. Depressed people don't care about living. But Paul's desire didn't spring from depression. In fact, Paul was one of the happiest people who ever lived. We know this because in that same epistle he also wrote, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content" (4:11), and "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice" (4:4). He even survival as expendable because he knew firsthand — perhaps more than anyone else ever has — what Jesus promised: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). Paul shows us what that means: rejoicing and desiring to be with God so much that we are happy to live or die. Who wouldn't want that?

According to James, the way to a pure heart, the way to know what Paul knew, comes as a result of changing our thinking. We are to become single-minded rather than allowing ourselves to remain double-minded. James is also clear that we are not to be passive in the process; it is something we are told to do. There is no "let go and let God" to be found here. It is true that we cannot actually change ourselves; God changes us. He does so as we set our minds on him and his ways. But we won't set ourselves in this direction unless we believe that what we give up in this process is worth the cost. We can't have it both ways, but we are always going to try unless we are convinced that living for Christ is well worth whatever lesser things we lose along the way.

Single-mindedness is the path to a pure heart, which is why Paul wrote, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom. 12:2 NIV). Good and acceptable and perfect — to whom? "Not to God, of course," writes James Boice. "That is obvious. Besides, we do not have to prove that God is pleased by his own will, nor could we." Dr. Boice adds:

When Paul encourages us to prove that God's will is a pleasing will, he obviously means pleasing to us. That is, if we determine to walk in God's way, refusing to be conformed to the world and being transformed instead by the renewing of our minds, we will not have to fear that at the end of our lives we will look back and be dissatisfied or bitter, judging our lives to have been an utter waste. On the contrary, we will look back and conclude that our lives were well lived and be satisfied with them.

A Pure Woman Is Perceptive

With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.

PSALM 18:25–26

Do you yearn to be in God's company, or is meeting with him in his Word and in prayer an exercise you have to make yourself do? Perhaps for you it ebbs and flows. At times you are eager to learn all you can about God and to slip off alone with your Bible for an hour of quiet and prayer, but at other times Bible reading feels like a chore, and when you prepare for worship you find yourself thinking more about the people you'll see at church than about meeting with God. Why does this happen? What makes God appealing to us sometimes but not so much at other times? After all, he doesn't change (Heb. 13:8).

Although God doesn't change, our perception of him does. Sometimes we perceive him as a welcoming father but at other times as an unfriendly taskmaster. Our desire for God will always be determined by our perception of God, and what determines our perception of him is the state of our heart. The psalmist makes the connection abundantly clear.

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Excerpted from "Purity"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Lydia Brownback.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
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