Jesus Life Hacks // Pure Heart Matthew 5:8
Too often in our culture, appearance is more important than substance: in business, athletics, in politics — and too often, in the church.
Culture may thrive on appearance and status, but substance is what matters in the Kingdom
Matthew 5:8 NIV “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
In the Bible the heart symbolizes the decision-making organ. Jesus is referring to our inner self: our spirit, our soul, our mind.
This Beatitude finds its Old Testament parallel in Psalm 24:3-6 “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 … Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob.”
PURE // The word “pure” in the Greek is katharos, the word from which we get our word (Ca Thar This).
The basic meaning is to make pure by cleansing from dirt, filth, and contamination. It’s the Brita Filter for our heart. Jesus is stressing the importance of having a pure heart. He knows that any impurities will contaminate the heart. Things like sin, offenses, hatred, jealously, greed, selfishness will all contaminate us.
In the Law, God commanded His priests that the temple and people of God were not to be “contaminated” with animals or other things that had been devoted to other gods. If the people of Israel came in contact with anything “unclean”, they had to be “cleansed” before they could worship God. So they had rituals of “washing” for themselves or their things, to make them suitable for God.
God commanded them to carry out these rituals – but unfortunately, like we often do, many of the people took these things too far. So by the time Jesus came in the New Testament, the religious group called the Pharisees were totally consumed with the issue of keeping themselves outwardly “clean”. They would wash every cup and basin, and wash their hands ceremonially, and go through all kinds of ceremonial “washings” to keep clean.
The Pharisees were obsessed with external cleansing and ceremonies. But Jesus was more concerned with the internal corruption.
Matthew 23:25-28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."
Outwardly, the Pharisees appeared to be morally clean, but inwardly, their hearts were corrupt.
Jesus teaches that inward “heart-righteousness” is more important than “rules righteousness.”
HEART// The word “heart” is kardia, from which we get cardiac.
The word “heart” is used figuratively as the center of one’s moral and spiritual nature. It’s the very center of your being, so the pure in heart are genuine and sincere in their relationship with God, and their hearts are clean before him.
Again Jesus was questioned and challenged by the Pharisse’s because the disciples were not following the religious cleansing laws.
Matthew 15:1-2 “Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’[c]”Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Your heart is the storehouse of your life.
Storehouse: is a barn for crops. They would be collected and stored in a safe place to be used throughout the year. If a storehouse was not properly protected from weather, animals or thieves they could lose an entire crop they had worked so hard to collect.
Your heart influences your thinking, your action and your speech. This is why Jesus says it’s so important for us to have clean and pure hearts.
Our Brita Filter in life is the bible, biblical community/ real friends, serving (breaks selfishness), prayer, repentance. Jesus is simply asking you “How is your hear