A Pure Heart

While meditating on Psalms 24:4a, I was asking God how one could have a pure heart? How is it that I can turn wholeheartedly toward Him? I was asking what a pure heart is and how I can keep the motives of my heart pure so that the work of my hands will be clean to the eyes of the Lord. How can put myself in to building the Burn in Denver without mistakenly build something out of my own ambition, or desire for recognition?

Then God revealed to me that when I start operating out of my love for him, and in the knowledge of his love for me, then I would be working out of a pure heart. But when I operate out of trying to earn his love by having a big ministry, selfish motives come into play. I start competing against others as I jealously try to earn God’s love. I am so often insecure when it comes to accepting and believing in the Love of our Father. So I work hard so that maybe, just maybe, God will notice me and Love me. I become jealous of others—wanting to be better than them and go further than them because I want God to love me. And how could he love me when someone else over there has some grand ol’ ministry and is doing great things for God?

I believe that jealousy, and striving against one another for position, and the individualist mindset that seizes so many, leading people to despair and ruin, is rooted in the lack of understanding of the love of God. God does not care how big your ministry is, or how many mission trips you went on, or how long it took you to go 24/7 in you city, or for how long it lasted. God primarily wants a heart that loves him and desire to know him. That is different than any one ministry or job position in life.

As we grow in the revelation of his whole, pure, and secure love—allowing us to stop jockeying for his affection—we are able to function out of our love for him, making the motives of our hearts to be pure, and the works of our hands clean.