He who is not pure in heart
“those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth” (Proverbs 30:12).
It takes at least two months to publish a book. Nevertheless, as God's gracious hand helped me (Neh. 2:18), my insufficient book “Those Who are Pure in Heart” came out quickly after about a month and a half so that at our church 30th ear anniversary commemorative service I was able to give my book as a gift to our church members and their neighbors. It was surely God’s grace! When I first received my book from a publisher, I read and re-read it. As I was reading the book first time, I thought ‘Oh, that’s why people don’t publish books.’ The reason was because I thought that my writings in the book were too insufficient. And when I read the book for the second time, God planted a prayer topic in my heart, ‘God, please purify my heart’. The reason was because since the publication of that book, the Holy God has been revealing more and more of the dirty, ugly, and sinful things in my heart than before. It was sad. I was disappointed and sad because of myself as I faced the ugliness of my heart revealed in God's holy presence. But this, too, could be a joy. The reason was because I realized that I have no choice but to depend more and more on the blood of Jesus on the cross.
When I was reading Proverbs 29-31 last night, my eyes stopped at Proverbs 30:12. I think the reason is because of the word, “those who are pure in their own eyes”. When I read the Bible again, I remembered the title of my book, “Those Who are Pure in Heart,” so I think my eyes stopped on that verse. And I thought about it and I asked myself couple of questions: ‘Am I considering myself pure?’, ‘Do I consider myself pure while my heart is full of filth?’ When I thought about these questions and examined my heart, the thought came to my mind was ‘I have pride in my heart.’ What is truly terrifying and frightening is the pride that is always lurking in my heart. Pride is so scary because it makes me spiritually blind. In other words, pride is terrifying because it blinds my spiritual eyes so that I cannot see my sin with the flaming eyes of my holy God. Instead, pride makes me see the sins of others more and more, and make me to judge and condemn them with my heart. In other words, pride is scary because it makes my eyes so haughty (v. 13) that it prevents me from looking at the sins of my own heart, but rather makes me look at the superficial sins of others. It may not take time to see my own sins in the presence of holy God. But I can't help but be proud of my heart as I diligently look at the sins of others and despise, judge, and condemn them with my heart. My heart is full of filthy things, and I cannot but acknowledge and confess that I am not pure in heart.
God has pity on such proud and unclean man and is giving me grace. That grace is God brings out the filth that fills my heart, so that I can count sin as a sin and confess my filthy and ugly sins in my heart as I trust the power of the blood of Jesus on the cross. And the indwelling Holy Spirit is making me depend on the fact that the Spirit is praying for me with groanings that cannot be expressed because I am weak and I don’t know what to ask for. I want my heart to be pure. Of course, I know that even though I may be able to fix all my bad deeds and forsake all thoughts of sin, I cannot boast my purity in the presence of the Lord. But I still want to ask God to help me to throw away all sinful thoughts. I want to keep throwing them away until I die. Although I am in agony due to my sinful thoughts that I keep on trying to throw away again and again, I see myself holding onto sinful thoughts that harden my heart. But I want to become a Christian with a pure heart by humbly repenting and repenting my sins as I keep on relying on God's mercy and grace.
“O Lord, purify my heart.”