A Pure Heart Towards God

"But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” Jeremiah 17:10

by Alexandra Copeland

Proverbs 4:23 (NLT) is a very popular verse of scripture. As a matter of fact, it is known as one of the greatest scriptures in the book of Proverbs. It says, “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Whenever we see such a direct piece of wisdom and instruction like this from Heavenly Father, our ears ought to perk up and stand at attention. This particular verse is one that will help us tremendously in life, because like all of God’s wisdom, it shoots straight from the hip.  

To guard is to watch over something, and in this case, the something is the ‘heart’. The physical heart is the source of life for the flesh and blood body, but this is not the heart that Proverbs 4:23 is referring to. This verse is referencing the heart that you and I know as the deepest part of the soul. It’s the seat of our total personality, the feeling center of our existence. Just as one cannot place a value on how important the physical heart is to sustaining a quality life, the same can be said of the heart of our souls.   

The heart, the seat of our being, is so very important to maintaining a strong and solid relationship with God through Christ. In Matthew 5:8, Jesus Christ encourages us by telling us, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” This is very comforting, because as born again believers, we can renew our minds to God’s Word and allow it to penetrate our hearts to the point that we begin to live from the inside out. When our inner reality is bountiful, our outer reality will follow. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to pay attention to what is going on in our hearts, because if we have some ugly stuff going on in there, the situations and relationships in our lives will reflect this ugliness back at us in some way.

This will not feel good, and it’s not God’s best. He doesn’t want us to live beneath our privilege. He wants us to be lively and approach life from a very secure and thriving place. We can’t do this if deep down we’re feeling angry, sad, insecure, and overlooked. The heart of the soul is where all of these feelings are housed.

Are we born with a pure heart to begin with? No, we are not. Unfortunately, thanks to Brother Adam, all of us are born with hearts that have sinful natures. And this is why we have to give ourselves over to Jesus Christ, so that he can help us purify our hearts towards God.

The sinful nature that is in our hearts is the old nature that it talks about in Ephesians 4:22 (NLT). It tells us to “throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.” When we are born into this world, the heart is already stained. Many of us don’t want to hear this, but it is entirely the truth. There are instances in life where we even surprise ourselves at the depth of anger, jealousy, and rage that we conjure up. It’s like, “Where did that come from? I didn’t know I had it in me!” The truth is that there are wounded and troubled places in our hearts that we haven’t begun to know or explore, but God knows them.

Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT) tells us, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” This verse should make us so incredibly thankful for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Without his wonderful love, we would be completely and utterly lost. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is the MOST deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. You don’t have to look too far in the world to see the truth of this verse. Most of us spend the bulk of our days focusing on everything in the world except God and His Word. We do not pray and study nearly as much as we should. This is because we are not guarding our hearts above all else.

God said in Jeremiah 17:10, “But I, the LORD, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” God knows our secret thoughts. He knows the motives behind what we do. Sometimes we have desires and aspirations in life that we want so desperately, and we can’t understand why God doesn’t just plop them in our laps. Well, sometimes our motives are not deeply rooted in Godliness, but rather selfishness. God doesn’t withhold any blessing from us, but His Word tells us that we must seek Him first; because this is the key to living a blessed life.

God designed all of creation to respond lovingly to us when His love is at the center of our focus. We can’t read a few passages of scripture every now and again, or pray once or twice a month and say that we are diligently seeking God. No. Heavenly Father wants to come into our hearts in a major way, and He will not do this without our invitation.

You and I have the distinct honor and privilege of putting out the welcome mat for our awesome Heavenly Father. The Apostle James said in James 4:8 (NLT), “Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.” We have to come close to God, get to know Him intimately by talking with Him often and studying His Word. We have to be diligent and pay attention to our relationship with Him. It’s a relationship that requires us to nurture it as we would any other relationship with someone we dearly love.

God has also told us through the Apostle James to purify our hearts. If our hearts were already pure, we wouldn’t need to purify them, but they are not. To purify is to make clean. This doesn’t mean that you and I have the ability to wipe all the nonsense and evil out of our hearts. This is something that we do not have the ability to do, but the spirit that indwells us is our helper. He will lead, guide, and direct us into all truth. He teaches us how to be better Christians and how to come close to God. Our responsibility is to be teachable—to be willing to put off the old things that hold us back and embrace the spiritual goodies that will propel us forward. The spirit will help us to do this if we’ll let him.

John 16:8 tells us that the indwelling Holy Spirit will convict us of our sin, so that we can stand before God’s throne humbly, and then repent. A repenting heart signifies that we are allowing the love of Christ to come into our weak places and make them strong. This is why we must be sure to guard our hearts by being diligent to the things of God and honoring His Word. When we do, the end result will be a good life and a heart that is pure towards Him. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright ©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.