From where does a pure heart come? From the Lord! Third, from Where do clean hands come? Clean Hands come from a Pure Heart. Jealousy (Comparison!) Fear Hatred Racism and Pride are all Filthy things that pollute our hearts and drive our hands to filthy acts (or often worse, to not act at all!).Others Filthy Things Hidden in Our Hearts:.The bitter person has often buried, quite deeply, unforgiveness and judgment (and jealousy and pride!) they have taken the filthiest things are hidden them in their hearts and these things are a constant cesspool for the bacteria of evil to infect and corrupt all parts of their lives.The person who is bitter because their expectation of what others should or should not have done, what has happened in their lives or how they believe that God should or should not have done something, that person, whatever they experience tastes bitter.To have a bitter taste in your mouth is to experience the physical sensation of bitter. We know that bitterness is a sin and yet it is also a taste.When we judge people we hold them Our Standard and want to see our Justice administered to them instead of giving them over to God, the Great judge.To judge means to Act as The Law, to pass judgment upon a person and to also pass sentence upon them. People who harbor unforgiveness have typically judged the person they are refusing to forgive and judged them much more harshly than they would ever judge themselves.We seem to give ourselves permission to Be Unforgiving, releasing ourselves from God’s Ways, from God’s Purity, because “Bob did this to me and said that to me, therefore, I have a right not to forgive him.”.It is one of the filthies things we hold onto in our hearts and minds.We hold onto this persistent ill feeling towards people and very often want them punished.We seem to love to hold grudges against people who have offended us.Some of the filthiest things around, things that many Christians seem to be okay with hiding in, storing in, their hearts are… What type of things do we need to clean up in our hearts so that God’s grace, love and abundance will flow Through Our Hands? How will you do more good in this next season of your life? You will allow God to clean your heart and in doing so, your good works, the right good works will increase and the fruit of that good work will increase. We can declare that our heart is good and we can carefully choose words that make others think that our heart, thoughts and intentions are good and pure BUT UNTIL our hands get busy with providing tangible fruit, tangible evidence of the goodness and purity of our hearts then we have really not yet love our neighbor. Not with our hearts! Not with our mouths even. Second, How do we do anything good in this life for those we love? For our neighbors? Our hands beautify our body and in turn we beautify our hands yet we do not beauty our hearts nor does our heart beautify our body. Our heart does not build homes, protect the house, tend gardens or type out emails and posts for the world to read. Our heart doesn’t tuck our kids in at night, our heart does not caress the face of our loved ones and our heart does not deliver groceries to an elderly neighbor.

Yes, I know, we cannot live without it but follow me on this. While our heart is always working we rarely think about it and we do nothing tangible, nothing noticeable with it. Our heart is never visible and if it is then we have been in a very terrible accident or we are on the surgeon’s table with serious heart issues. In the past few years I look down at my hands and am often shocked by how much they have aged and I think, “When did I get my Dad’s hands?” We tend to the superficiality of our hands by manicuring them and we beautify them by polishing and painting them. We turned off the alarm, turned on the radio, washed our faces, brushed our teeth, styled our hair, put on clothes and tied our shoes.

Most of us used our hands this morning to tend to our own needs and to beautify ourselves. We use our hands to build houses, to tend gardens and to build digital worlds on-line. Our hands care for our children and it is with our hands that we prepare meals in order to sustain ourselves and our families. Our hands are what we use to reach out to help our neighbor and to protect ourselves from those who seek to do us harm. Our hands are almost always visible to others. Not the distance between them but rather the huge gap between what they do and how they are seen.

5 He shall receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of his salvation.…” (Psalm 24:4 NIV)įirst, notice the wide gap between your Hands and your Heart. “Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in His holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to falsehood, who does not swear deceitfully.

A pure heart and clean hands