Pure

 April 1, 2021

Pure. Years ago, Ivory advertised its soap as being 99 & 44/100% pure. We didn’t necessarily know what that meant, but we did believe it was pretty well devoid of impurities. After all, that’s what pure means—unadulterated with stuff that shouldn’t be there. Pure gold is gold unmixed with other stuff. Pure water has no chemicals or sediments in it. but what about a pure heart? Psalm 51:10 says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me,” while Proverbs 20:9 asks the necessary question, “Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?”” Who can say they are 100% for God...all the time? 

And yet, purity is what we long for, what we need. Psalm 24:3-4 delineates the problem: “Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” Apart from a pure heart, we cannot hope to stand before the Presence of a holy God, and no one can claim a pure heart. 

I’ve been rendering beeswax. In the course of working bees, when we extract honey, a certain amount of wax gets cut from the comb, and often old comb needs to be culled from the hive. There are always impurities; propolis—the glue bees make from tree resins, bits of dead bees, and other stuff that works its way into the hive in the course of a year. It looks pretty ugly—dark, lumpy, and not at all what you might envision in a taper or mixed with other components to make lip balm or furniture polish. Rendering requires melting the wax and impurities in water, straining the impurities, letting it cool, then repeat, often two or three times before we get the beautiful, pure light yellow we’re looking for.

God’s process of rendering a human heart to make it pure is not too dissimilar from what I am doing with the beeswax. He puts us into hot water, strains us through a medium that catches the impurities, lets us cool down for awhile, and repeats. All of this is done so the purity of Christ can shine in all its glory. I don’t like the heat, nor am I particularly enamored with the straining; I would like very much if God only had to put me through it once, but he isn’t satisfied with partially pure any more than I am satisfied with the dull dark yellow of a partially rendered cake of beeswax. God has in mind purposes for our lives far more glorious than we would imagine, and will not stop the purifying process till we meet his standards. 

I can easily see the difference between beeswax fully rendered and that which is only partially so. I don’t as easily see the difference between a heart fully purified and one partially so. But God does, for which I am grateful tonight. He sees. And he keeps the heat on till we pass his inspection and are ready for holy purposes of which we may know very little.