Purifying my Heart for worship
what do all these passages have in common?
Right, Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord is more than something we say, it’s a command, something we do!
2. Purifying my hear is one of the basic ways we
prepare for worship.
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul contrasts love, the core value of the Christian life, with five things so many of us believe are really important to God:
• spiritual gifts (“tongues of men and of angels”)
• knowledge (“can fathom all mysteries”)
• mega-faith (“faith that can move mountains”)
• self-sacrifice (“give all I possess”)
• passion (“surrender my body to the flames”)
Nothing, no, nothing is comparable to love, and all of these potentially loveless things are like an annoying “gong” or a “clanging symbol,” like the alarm clock you set, by mistake, to go off at three in the morning. Gifts, knowledge, faith, self-sacrifice, passion—they are “nothing,” and “nothing” is to be gained from them without a heart of love. Good behavior, even good “spiritual” practices are worthless without a pure heart, a “fixed heart.”
Here’s how the psalmist addresses this matter:
Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false. He will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God his Savior (Ps. 24:3–5).
“The hill of the Lord” is Zion, and “the holy place” is the spot on which the ark rested. If this is a song of David, it’s a reference to his tabernacle, a breezy, veil-less tent pitched on the high place of Jerusalem where the temple of Solomon would one day take its place. So who can go there? Who can access the special presence of God? Who can enjoy the radiant shekinah? The answer: a person who lives right, one who doesn’t have a “mixed” heart, somebody who loves God and not a lot of other things, too. Oh, and you can trust what this person says. His or her word is as good as gold.
3. A Pure heart is not a perfected Heart.
3.1 The Gospel is Truth!
Abraham, Paul’s perfect example of righteousness by faith, is as good a man as you’ll ever find. Abraham, who is claimed as the father of each of the three great monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yes, Abraham, the man who could not be righteous enough to save his own soul, who, because he feared for his own life, gave his wife to a pagan king and told the man Sarah was his sister (see Gen. 20:1–2)!
1. In Christ, you and I have been made perfect forever. It’s the perfect heart we’d do anything for but can’t ever seem to do enough to get. The good news is that a perfect heart is ours for the asking, by faith, an opportunity for a once-and-forever event the Bible calls “justification.”
2. Once you get that perfect heart, though, the journey isn’t over, because the new nature inside of you has to take over. Specifically, the new nature has to rule the old you. “Therefore,” Paul writes, “do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires” (Rom. 6:12). The Bible calls this process of change “sanctification,” that is, “being made holy.” Over time, it’s what makes our hearts purer and purer.
