Seeking God to Know Him (part 2) by David K

Clean Hands and Pure Heart

(Part 2 of the lesson called “Seeking God to Know Him)

In traditional logic there is a distinction between the words “or” and “and” in a logical statement.  The word “or” allows that only one of the two conditions needs to be met for the statement to be true.  If the word “and” is used, then both of the conditions need to be met for the statement to be true.  In Psalm 24:3-4, David uses the “and” condition for someone to ascend to the Lord and stand in His holy place.  This means that in order to join together with God, both conditions need to be met, not just one condition.

                This is important to know because many in the church come to the Lord with clean hands, but they do not have a pure heart.  Jesus foresaw this with His teaching in Mathew 7:21-23.  These are individuals who had clean hands because they were able to do religious works in His name.  Yet, in all of their religious activity, they had not accomplished the second condition – the pure heart.  Therefore, Jesus would declare that they had not met the condition of intimacy with Him and reject them from participating together with Him in His holy place.

                Jesus showed that these individuals accomplished very impressive religious activities – they prophesied, they healed people and performed many miracles, they cast out demons – it all sounds very impressive as many are trying to accomplish these same things in the church today.  These are “clean hands” works.  But they have left something out.  Even though they have done these things in Jesus’ name, they have done them out of their own will.  They could have been following some spiritual leader and were trying to emulate him or her.  They could have been trying to impress an audience with their spirituality.  They could have been trying to fit in or build a reputation for themselves.  They could have been trying to “conquer the world for Christ”.  The main thing was that they were acting out of their own will instead of following the will of the Holy Spirit.  This also shows that it can seem that people are doing God’s will when in fact they are doing their own will while doing religious works.

                A pure heart comes only when one lays down his or her own will to follow the will of God, as Jesus demonstrated.  This is unusually hard, because it means one has to swallow all sense of pride.  A person is easily led astray, especially if something “good” (like a miracle of healing for example) is happening.  God recognized that continual infirmary, beatings, and endangerment were all “good” for Paul to help him not become prideful concerning the work he was doing for the Lord.  Paul also saw that God’s grace would be sufficient to help him keep his heart pure and allow him to finish his “race” thereby fulfilling both conditions to be with Jesus.

                It is very difficult for people to lay their own wills down because they want to be successful and have the admiration of their peers, family, and supporters.  They want to build a big church/ministry or be part of a successful church/ministry.  They want to feel like they are successful in God’s eyes and they want to feel like if they are doing the religious works (clean hands) they are told to do by their leaders.  Just remember that none of that is sufficient without the pure heart.  It is not possible to join with Jesus without an intimate relationship with Him.  It is not possible to be intimate if one does not lay down one’s own will and follows God’s will instead remembering that worldly success and accomplishment is not God’s agenda.  Even good health is low on God’s priority list if it would interfere with His calling for that individual.  God’s grace is always sufficient and He works with man’s weaknesses – not his strengths – lest any man should boast.

                Don’t let yourself get caught up with the “clean hands” works and lose sight of the “pure heart” aspect of the two conditions that have to be met to join in with Jesus.  God may use you, but it will be at a time of when you see yourself at your weakest and not when you are being championed in a manner as the world raises up heroes.