Purity

April 24, 2021

When something is pure, it is unmixed with anything else. Pure gold has no other elements in it. Pure water has no contaminates. A pure heart is singly devoted, unmixed with alternate loyalties. Psalm 24 posits purity as a condition for ascending the hill of the LORD, ie. presenting oneself for worship. “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god” (vv. 3-4). 

This presents us with a problem: Who can say their heart is pure? As Jeremiah noted, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (17:9). That certainly describes me; my only hope is to even with a hopelessly impure heart, to seek Christ. The psalmist describes those who can stand before and receive the blessing of the LORD: “They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob” (vv. 5-6). The promise of the Gospel is that if I seek him, he will be found. Isaiah commands us: 

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 

Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. 

Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, 

and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”

—Isaiah 55:6-7 

What’s more, if I open the gates of my deceitful and wicked heart, the Lord of Glory will enter in:

“Lift up your heads, you gates; 

be lifted up, you ancient doors, 

that the King of glory may come in. 

Who is this King of glory? 

The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.”

—Psalm 24:7-8 

As Luke 15 reminds us, he has been seeking us long before we began seeking him. As imperfect as I am, if I merely open the gates of my heart and turn from my unrighteousness, he will enter, and when he enters, he bestows upon me his own purity. I know the times I have been double minded, when my heart is torn between my will and God’s. It is unsettling, and weighs me down. But when I, even with a divided mind, begin to seek him, I discover he has been looking for me, and when I open the gates of my heart, he strides in victoriously, rooting out any remnants of resistance and establishing the peace that only comes from a pure heart.