A Purified Heart

God …put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Acts 15:9

First, what is our heart? It’s who we are. It’s the “real you” underneath the outward dressing. It’s the person who lives inside your skin. It’s your innermost being.

And the religious man can improve his life, outwardly, and yet still have an impure, unclean heart (Matthew 23:25-28).

(They appear outwardly righteous bcos it is to their advantage to put on that appearance. They couldn’t pursue their career in religion, and succeed in the business, if they did not appear outwardly righteous. Even the wolf knows that he must put on the sheep costume in order to succeed.)

The heart of man refers to his motives and his secret, inner-life, which no one but God can see. The man who’s heart has been purified by God, now has pure heart motives. The outwardly righteous man still has wrong motives.

And, if a man has unclean thoughts, it did not have its source in his mind, it has its origin in his impure, unclean heart. The heart governs the mind. The heart of man is the source of every man’s sin, Jesus declared (Matthew 15:19).

Our text declares that God purifies the heart by faith. This means the normal state of the heart is unclean, impure – dirty, defiled. And God, alone, can purify the unclean heart and make it pure – from dirty to pure – from defiled to undefiled.

How then could religious man ever think that he could purify his own heart?

Peter declared that God alone does the purifying, and He does it by our faith. Christ, alone, suffered, bled and died to purify our hearts from sin, and He rose to be our Living Savior. The Purification was completed on the Cross, and now must be received by faith.

Blessed are the pure in heart, Jesus declared, for they SHALL SEE GOD!!! (Matthew 5:8). Only the pure in heart shall see God (Hebrews 12:14).

The dirty sinner who TRUSTS in the LORD Jesus Christ to forgive them and wash their sins away in His own precious Blood, IS clean.

That God does the purifying of the heart BY FAITH, means, that the INSTANT a dirty sinner believes from the heart, he IS clean – for faith is God’s imputed righteousness (Romans 4:5) – true faith IS righteousness.

People need new hearts. They need their unclean hearts to be purified, therefore they need to believe the Gospel – to believe on the LORD Jesus Christ. This is the need of man – this is the entrance into the Kingdom of God, and cannot be bypassed, for nothing unclean shall enter in.

Has your heart been purified by God? Have you experienced the purification of your heart?