Matthew 5: Blessed are the pure in heart

Captain Clare Kinsey reminds us that childlike faith and focus can help us see God.

Key texts

• Matthew 5:8

I am personally very blessed in my current appointment to spend a lot of time with adults and children who live with some form of neurodiversity. In our interactions together, I often find myself marvelling at how the people I work with see the world, often with such innocence or intrigue that I cannot help but smile. Even a simple thing like rolling a ball or tube around on the floor can take complete and unwavering focus. Interestingly, when I read Matthew 5:8 – ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’ – my mind immediately focused on such people.

Pause and reflect

• What does ‘pure in heart’ mean to you?

If we look in different translations of Scripture, we find that many people have tried to work this out. For example, the International Children’s Bible says: ‘Those who are pure in their thinking are happy.’ Does being happy therefore mean that your heart is pure? In comparison, The Message paraphrases this verse: ‘You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right.’ So, does everything being right in your world mean that you have a pure heart?

Pause and reflect

• What or who comes first to your mind when you think of the phrase ‘pure in heart’?
• If you consider just the word ‘pure’, what do you think of?

To truly understand what ‘pure in heart’ means, we must look at this phrase in the context of the entire verse: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’

Here, ‘seeing God’ does not mean the physical act of seeing God with our eyes. Rather it’s a spiritual awareness in our soul of God’s presence in our lives. Purity of heart comes from having our sole focus on God.

In a world with so many complications and distractions in our lives, how do we have a pure heart? The answer can be found in Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:14 – ‘Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children’ (New Living Translation).

Pause and reflect

• What helps you remain open and receptive to God?
• What helps you to be eager to learn with a childlike faith?

It is with childlike faith that our focus remains on Jesus and we can ‘see’ God. Those who have spent time with young children will know that it’s often very difficult to get a child to forget something exciting, even with many attempts at distraction.

When on holiday recently, my daughter knew we were going to buy an ice cream that day. However, we had said we would get one later. Even with many distractions that included the beach, rides and chips, she kept on returning to the question: ‘When will we get an ice cream?’ Even with so much going on around her and plenty to see, her sole focus was getting that ice cream. This is a simple explanation that doesn’t do justification to the text, but it’s with a similar thought that we need to come to God.

I imagine that, when Jesus said ‘let the children come to me’, he was asking everyone to come to him with a pure, simple and focused faith in him and with no distractions getting in the way.

Pause and reflect

• How might we sometimes complicate our faith?
• What things threaten to pull us away from focusing on God and his will for our lives?

In Proverbs 4:23, we are advised: ‘Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.’ In the light of those distracting things we identified earlier, how might we best respond to such wise words?

In Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs for Everyone, theologian John Goldingay suggests: ‘A disciple is someone who accepts someone’s discipline… Learning involves submitting yourself to someone else’s discipline.

Keeping focused on guarding your heart and keeping it pure, so that you can align yourself with God’s will, takes discipline. Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount suggest that, in order to see God, we need to keep a pure heart. It takes work daily, if we are to keep ourselves from distraction and not be caught up in thoughts and tasks that might otherwise claim priority in our lives.

Perhaps you find it difficult to put some things below your relationship with God. We are, however, blessed that God places people and situations in our lives to help us keep our hearts pure. Paul writes: ‘We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbours for their good, to build them up’ (Romans 15:1 and 2).

There may be times when we struggle to see God because so much is getting in the way, but someone or something intervenes, and we are able to align ourselves once again to his will.

King David lost focus on God and became distracted. He failed to be pure in heart (see 2 Samuel 11). Later, he sought God’s forgiveness and prayed: ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me’ (Psalm 51:10).

As you consider your own heart, you may find it helpful to use these lyrics by Brian Doerksen:

Purify my heart,

Cleanse me from within and make 

me holy.

Purify my heart,

Cleanse me from my sin, deep within.

Refiner’s fire, 

My heart’s one desire is to be holy, 

Set apart for you, Lord.

I choose to be holy,

Set apart for you, my Master,

Ready to do your will.

                               (SASB 517)