Sorry I missed being with you last week. My heart was to be faithful with my weekly blog post but some pretty extensive oral surgery trumped my desire. However it has been good for my diet! This week is gram-ma -gram-pa camp. It is so fun having the grand-kids to ourselves. This means you are getting in this blog what has been cooking in my kitchen.

I just returned from speaking at Boston University and used some of the material I had posted here on the beatitude in Mt 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  As I was preparing, I had an additional thought that exponentially increased the good news of this beatitude…and that is what it does not say! It does not say, “Blessed are the pure, for they shall see God.”

If gold is pure, it means there are no impurities in it at all. It is 100% pure, perfect, uncontaminated gold. Not even a speck of something inconsistent with its nature. If that is what I have to become in order to experience God, I am in big trouble. By lots of rules, discipline and accountability I might be able to get to the point the Pharisees did in Mt 23…where my outward behavior is pretty admirable. Jesus said they outwardly appeared righteous to others.

But here is the problem, inwardly the Pharisees were “full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Mt 23:28). They were consistently inconsistent! That is the reverse of being pure.

Here is the good news. It is not the 100% consistently pure who get to experience God, it it those who are “pure in heart.” And being pure in heart is something God does for me. He gives me a new heart, a new nature that has the DNA of his divine nature in it. This is a beautiful statement of the grace of God.

Now – does this mean that I do not work on outward behavior that is consistent with my new inner nature?  NO!  But it does mean I now have a source from which my outward behavior can come. This makes me think of Psalm 24:3-4, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord…He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” The Pharisees tried to have clean hands without a new and pure heart. Their assumption was cleans hands will create a pure heart.

They had it backwards. The pure heart creates in us an ability to have clean hands. Always? No. Of course not. We see Paul struggling with his inconsistency in Romans 7. When he looked at his hands, he saw them doing things he didn’t want them to do.  HOWEVER – HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS – it is not our behavioral consistency that allows us to see and experience God, it is the miracle of a new and pure heart! This beatitude is incredible good news that makes us stand in awe of the grace of God every day. I get to experience God because of what He has done in me.

 

IMPORTANT UPCOMING NEWS: August is my annual sabbatical from blogging. It is the month I focus on Psalm 23 – lying beside still waters and allowing God to restore my soul. Let me suggest that you do the same and one way to do that could be to unhurriedly dwell on some of the blog posts from this past year. Is there something that God seems to be impressing on you? Is there a trend of truths your heart responds to? What might this mean for you? Please keep posting your thoughts and discoveries and I will see you on Thursday, September 1!

 

“…At one time you were darkness, but now you are light…walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

“At one time you were…now you are…”  We are not who we used to be! In Christ we are actually someone different. Paul doesn’t just say that we are now living in the light, but we are light. He then says that this light has the DNA of goodness, of rightness, and of truth (“for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true”). Because we are a new creation in Christ, we now have this new DNA implanted in us.

Paul then says we are to “walk” or to live consistently with who we are. We do not behave so that we can become someone with the DNA of light, but because we have the DNA of light, we are to live that way…”walk as children of light.”  Live like who you are.

Note that our behavior is not the cause of our identity…rather our identity is the source of our behavior.  Could it be that my obedience is the evidence of what God has already done in me?

“You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God created identity” (Matthew 5:48, The Message).

“Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is always wrong.” The first time I heard Dr. Bryan Chapell say this it gave me pause. An extended pause. I didn’t like it because I know my motives for doing something “right” might not always be aligned with biblical truth. They might not always be the purest. Now I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Chapell.

A few years ago I had the privilege of delivering the Sunday morning sermon at a fairly large church on the west coast. My topic was God will never, never, never punish a believer for their sin. If God still punishes us, or our families, etc., for our sin, then Jesus did not bear all our sin on the cross. His punishment in our place was only partially effective. But because it was 100% effective, as a believer I never obey to avoid punishment. I obey to experience the love that He already has for me (John 15:10).

As Sue and I were walking out to the parking lot after the second service, we were following  a couple that had no idea the guest pastor was right behind them and could hear every word they were saying. They were roasting me! The bottom line of their disagreement was if God doesn’t punish us for our sin, we will never be motivated to obey. This meant they were not obeying to enjoy the love of God that Jesus had earned for them, but rather their acts of “obedience” were acts of self-protection. Protection from a God who discounted the work of Christ on the cross and was still displeased with them. They were basing their behavior on a lie. On disbelief.

There is an important principle here. What if sin does not lie simply in the act, but in the reason, the motive, the disbelief behind the act? If I serve my friend, on the surface it may appear to be a right thing to do. But if my motive is to get something in return, my serving is not right. It is manipulation. It is a selfish act. It is wrong.

Jesus reiterated this principle when he said, “Isaiah was right about frauds like you…  ‘These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart is not in it'”  (Mark 7:6, The Message). They appeared to be doing the right thing, but for wrong reasons. They were frauds because their acts were fraudulent. They were wrong. “Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is always wrong.”

So what do we do? We act out of a desire to honor God and a motivation of love…for God and others. And how do we grow in our love? By immersing ourselves in the love God has for us…and then we find ourselves loving because He first loved us.

QUESTION:  What are your thoughts? Leave a comment.