Your Daily Devotional for June 6, 2006

June 6, 2006

 

How’s Your Heart?

by Dr. Paul Chappell

 

 

“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

 

Matthew 5:8

 

When I was a boy, my parents told us that we were going to be moving to Korea. The Lord had called my parents to the mission field and we children were going as well. I remember that I did not want to leave America. After all, I had been born here; I had grown up here; and all my friends and relatives lived here! The first year that we were in Korea, I was angry and I did not enjoy being there at all. Only when I changed my heart did I truly begin to appreciate all that the Lord was using my family to do in South Korea.

 

You know, the heart of the problem is often a problem of the heart. What exactly does God mean when He speaks of the heart? In this verse, the word heart is being used to mean “the whole inner self” or “the spiritual part of a man.” Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart…” God is looking for a whole-hearted Christian—someone who is not ashamed to be called a child of God.

 

The word heart is used many different ways throughout the Bible. In John 14:1, “Let not your heart be troubled…” This word heart actually refers to the emotional part of a person. Also, Mark 2:8 says, “…Why reason ye these things in your hearts?” which refers to the intellect of the thinking ability of man. Lastly, the word heart is used to refer to a person’s free will, as we see in Daniel 1:8, “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat.” When someone accepts Christ as his Saviour, his “whole” heart is changed. He is changing his emotions, his thinking, and his free will.

 

We also see the word pure in our text today, “Blessed are the pure in heart…” Pure here means “a person who has no guile”—a person of integrity rather than duplicity. When I think of this kind of person, I think of a person who has no hidden agenda, no sarcastic undertone, and no rebellious pretence. I think of a person who is truly “pure in heart.”

 

There was a story in the news a little while back of two military officers who were engaged in a fierce battle of words. Colonel Hackworth, who was a decorated Vietnam veteran, had been accusing Admiral Barda of pinning on himself medals that had not been awarded to him. With all of the stress and the media attention of being falsely accused, Admiral Barda became so despondent that he took his own life. After the shock of this tragedy, it became known that Colonel Hackworth actually had several medals pinned on him that were not rightly his.

 

As Christians, we don’t need to focus on the condition of another person’s heart, but rather, the condition of our own hearts. Why do we sometimes pray for the revival of another person, when our own lives are not given completely to the Lord? We need to keep our eyes on our lives and examine our own heart. Do you have a pure heart? Maybe a better question is: Does God have your whole heart? Only when we give the Lord every part of our heart can we keep our heart pure before Him.

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