Pure in Heart

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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8 ESV)

In the Bible the heart is the center of a person’s life, housing their thoughts, emotions and will. “The heart is the center of the entire personality” (D. A Carson, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World, 1987, p. 26). The only way that we receive this promise of seeing God now is by being pure in heart.

“Purity of heart must never be confused with outward conformity to rules” (Carson, p. 26). God is not impressed by our heartless religiosity. While the pure in heart “le[t] nothing stand in the way of [their] vision of Christ” (Ferguson, The Sermon on the Mount, 2009, p. 37); the impure heart is one that is divided and noncommittal. This is the person who James calls double-minded (Jas 1:8; 4:8).

This Beatitude requires a heart check. We can invite the Holy Spirit to convict, test and search our hearts (Psalm 139:23-24) while answering questions such as: are we as committed to Him as we once were? How do our words and actions line up to what we find in Scripture? What or whom receives the greatest amount of our love and affection? How do you spend your down time?

In my first Seminary class, I traced purity from Genesis to Revelation for my Biblical Theme research paper. God gave me a line in that paper which has been the basis of my life for over four years, “purity is a manifestation of holiness and only a holy people can live with Holy God.” Our Triune God both in His Person and in His Work is Holy. For the believer in Christ, you are called to be holy. We are made holy at the time of our conversion and God in His grace and mercy continues to make us holy (sanctifies) until He calls us home.

However, we interrupt God’s plan for holiness in our lives when we seek the things of this world. When we respond in our flesh rather than in His Spirit. God cares about the purity of our thought lives. God also very much cares about the purity of our hearts in regards to the words we speak (whether oral or written). Are we speaking from a heart that wants to encourage and build up or are our words coming from a heart of jealousy, anger, hurt, a desire to be right?

In Psalm 24:3 David asks the question, “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?” He answers this saying, “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation” (vv. 4-5).

When our hearts are pure before God and man, God allows us to see glimpses of Himself. The more our hearts are pure, the more we show mercy, the more we hunger and thirst for Him in meekness, mourning and in poor spirit, the more we will see God both now and in eternity “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (v. 3).

Father God, while the promise of this Beatitude is in the future, help us to want to keep our hearts pure now. Father God, there is so much turmoil and infighting between Your people right now. Instead of being salt, light and known for our love we are known for our disagreements and quarrels. Lord God, reveal and convict our hearts of idols and impurity. Lord God, may we seek You first. By meditating on You and Your attributes, the less we will think about ourselves and the more we will want to please, honor and tell others about You! In Jesus’s Name I pray. Amen.

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Blue Collar Theologian

My name is Mandy Sweigart-Quinn, I live in Lancaster, PA and I am a “Blue Collar Theologian.” I love Jesus! I am passionate about His Word (The Holy Bible)! I come alive when I can encourage others in their walk with Jesus (whether by writing or speaking). As a “Blue Collar Theologian” it is my aim to live/practice/work out my Christian hope with sincerity, authenticity and genuineness. As a “Blue Collar Theologian,” I strive to meet people right where they are (“Incarnational Theology”). I graduated in May 2019 from Capital Seminary and Graduate School with a Master's in Biblical Studies. I am a passionate, excited and enthusiastic person! I love flowers, sports and sunsets. Since January 2, 2018 I have had the privilege of being married to Nathan.

56 thoughts on “Pure in Heart”

  1. Thanks for the great insight on being pure in heart. Love this: “When our hearts are pure before God and man, God allows us to see glimpses of Himself.” What an amazing promise that we will see God.

    Blessings for an amazing day.

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  2. Excellent post, Mandy. I agree totally with what you wrote here: “When our hearts are pure before God and man, God allows us to see glimpses of Himself.” Conversely, sin obscures these glimpses of God we so desire. I have experienced both sides of this “purity” issue.

    Keep up the good work!

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  4. A wonderful post and very much needed at this time! It seems like people are currently caught between “heartless religiosity” and “seeking the things of this world,” back and forth. How nice it would be if Christians followed this advice!

    Take care and God bless! 🙂

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  5. This is a great reminder of how important it is to stay on track in the life of holiness each day. Our Father God leads us on the Path of Righteousness but our enemy Satan tries to distract us at every opportunity, taking us off His Path. As I read this I was reminded of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan. Thank you Mandy for this worthy reflection sister, God bless you.

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  7. While I hesitate to respond, due to what has transpired as of late, your statement about purity being a manifestation of holiness cannot be denied and the test of that is found in your statement “Are we speaking from a heart that wants to encourage and build up or are our words coming from a heart of jealousy, anger, hurt, a desire to be right?” I think encourage also includes concern, especially when fear is being put forward as the motivating factor, and therein lies the area where human interaction meets and as we know, the result of that interaction isn’t always as per our intent. Good food for thought Mandy, I know for one that you’ve got me thinking. Thank you for sharing. God’s grace, peace and blessings to you and yours as always.

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  8. If I didn’t know any better, I would think we attend the same church here in El Paso. We are going through the beatitudes right now. I love that you have been posting about them and your insights regarding them. God bless you!

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      1. Yes! He is so creative in the ways He teaches us, and it’s really exciting when He is putting the same lessons on the hearts of believers in different places around the world (or nation, in this case). Nice to “meet” you, Bethany!

        Liked by 2 people

  9. Thanks, Mandy, a beautiful post.

    There is a very ornate church built in Israel, where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount.

    After visiting the church, I half laughed, and half cried, when I saw the signs posted on the church grounds. They said : ‘Keep Off the Grass.’
    🤗

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  11. As I’m sure you know, the words that are usually translated the Saints is over-literally “the Holies” or a little less literally “the Holy ones”. The singular form is used for the Holy Spirit (again, I’m sure you know). But so often I don’t feel that way–due to reflecting on my own actions.

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  13. Thanks, Mandy, for the good thoughts and for your prayer! Corinne and I had a discussion along these same lines yesterday. We must regularly examine our motives.

    “Are we speaking from a heart that wants to encourage and build up or are our words coming from a heart of jealousy, anger, hurt, a desire to be right?”

    There are surely situations and circumstances for confronting error and wrong-thinking as we see from Jesus Christ in the Gospels and from Paul in his epistles, but we can easily make it a personal vendetta and a quarrel. There are some people we just have to walk away from and pray for.

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      1. Thanks, Mandy! I continue to take daily walks outside despite the cold and ice to keep my legs limber for work. Corinne can’t chance it because the last thing she needs is another broken femur (or anything else). Stay indoors and keep warm! Pitchers and catchers report in less than three weeks!

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      1. Unfortunately, the “fading” of my mom seems to be speeding up. She still lives alone, but her life will soon have to change. She has/is very independent & proud. It will be like war to intervene in her behalf. I will be visiting with her in about a week & it will be an uncomfortable conversation, I’m sure. Thanks for asking & the prayers.

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  15. Wow another new post! Will read this shortly! Answering your question: It has been more colder than usual in SoCal, hitting 42 degrees which is probably shorts and Tshirts for you all but its super cold for us. LOL

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      2. Reading your post with my phone and for some reason I’m logged off on your site. So commenting through here lol. This is a good post Mandy, neat to see you use Carson and Ferguson and shared of your seminary assignment. I love what you said here: “ However, we interrupt God’s plan for holiness in our lives when we seek the things of this world.” So often we don’t notice how we stray from holiness as we get interrupt or distracted away from Him. We are indeed created to be Holy upon salvation as you also said. What a good heart check your posts on the beatitudes are

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  17. Thanks for your comment and discussion on my blog! You mentioned CRU and some of the national Campus Ministry. My fear is that for many years they have already given in into Critical Race Theory and leftist politics and bad theology for decades already or at least in Southern California. I use to be a vice president for the CRU in my campus. The CRU staff neglected our community college for “greener” pasture and I mean neglect since the guy would be suppose to preach and he would forget and we call him and he’s with his kids at the park. But I didn’t mind as I was zealous to teach then and I taught apologetics, sound theology, etc and we actually grew. The staff member was surprised and then after my time the club got so big CRU hired more staff but wanted to undo everything beginning with no apologetics. The students felt it was more lovey dovey nonsense doctrines and watered down Gospel plus racial ethnic nonsense stuff (they want to divide us up by race to do new ethnic ministries when we were united by all kinds of ethnicities already!!!) so they literally asked all the student leadership to leave and we formed a new Christian campus ministry. Eventually CRU became irrelevant and then Intervarsity came to the Campus and their line of appeal was bashing Evangelicalism and talk about White oppression, etc. The staff guy talked to one of our campus student in our Christian ministry with me there and she felt very uncomfortable with all the white bashing. Its so gross. Here we were doing ministry and helping special needs in the community college, poor minorities with teaching the Bible and financially, and helping pregnant at risk moms saved from not committing abortion and also saved from sins and hell with the Gospel, while IV was trying to be cool with the world, often bashing us of being fundamentalists so they look “moderate” and loving, wanting to steal our members, etc. When I went to UCLA the wokeness of Campus ministries was even worst. I am much grieved to think that much of my generation who are now adults being all whack and leaving the church as “exevangelical” is due to weak ministry to them with waterdown nonsense whether as children’s ministry, high school ministry and more culpably campus ministry in college campuses.

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    1. I am SO sorry! I knew that Cru could be iffy but I have some young friends who are part of Cru at our local small school and they are sound. Maybe it’s because of where I live but we don’t have the CRT issues plaguing bigger campuses and universities. Thank you for opening my eyes to this! I hope I did not offend you. Undergraduates are my passion, but more so in a small group setting. It gives me great joy to come alongside young undergrads and help them learn to process what they are being taught with a Biblical worldview. Penn State is about 2 hours west of me. It’s a major university. Now they have all kinds of Christian clubs/groups/outreach. There is nothing more heartbreaking to me then when a kid graduates and moves to Penn State and the church doesn’t follow up to see how they are doing spiritually, emotionally etc. Your heart for Evangelism is second to none! I am so amazed by you and Nancy! Have you ever tried outreaching at USC?

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      1. I think there are solid CRU guys, when I was in seminary there were people telling me how they grew in solid theology at CRU. But I do think the national office is probably less solid and I’ve seen their literatures pushing for ethno-centric things that is concerning; note I also think there’s a place for reaching all kinds of students with tailored campus ministries say to various ethnicities and especially to international students, but I’m not ok they have to bash others or bring in worldly sociological tools that question sound doctrines under the guise of uprooting whiteness, letting the oppressed speak, etc. Speaking of USC, our Tuesday Night Bible study is called “Lighthouse” because back in the day it began as a USC outreach and our church’s campus ministry! UCLA actually had a lot more solid Christian campus presence than USC. That was what led our church back in the early 2000s to be at USC, to be at a place where there’s less campus ministry. We use to joke that our heavily Bruin alumni church was going over to reach the Trojan heathens. Most of the USC members of that campus minsitry and members of our church from that era has moved away from LA area and no longer with our church since USC seem to have more students that were not from Southern California than UCLA. I can see you being involved with campus ministry with Undergrads. Were you at Penn State or involved with ministry at Penn State?

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