Tag Archive for Beatitude

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

2014-01-19 Beatitudes, Devotional with Hymn No comments

This is the eighth of an eleven-part series on the Beatitudes.
Each part features a hymn to a familiar tune.

Jesus’ sixth beatitude is this:

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8, NASB)

That is very much like Psalm 24, where it says,

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?
And who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood
And has not sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive a blessing from the Lord
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
(Psalm 24:3-5, NASB)

Father, I long to be pure.
I long to want only what You want.
I long for my every desire, every thought, and every action
to flow from love for You.
You have planted this desire deep within me.
I know that I can only live in Your holy presence
if I have clean hands and a pure heart.

But Father, purity is beyond me.
I was born in sin.
My roots sink deeply into it.
Even when I want to do the right thing,
without You I’m too weak.
Only You are pure, and
only You can make me pure.
You call me to a purity that only You can provide.
And Lord, You have promised it to me.
You said:

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness…I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you…I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27, NASB)

Father, You have promised my purity, and
You have provided it completely through Jesus Christ.
But what is my part?
Am I only a passive observer in all this?
How should I respond to what You have done for me?

Paul wrote:

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1, NASB)

And this:

In reference to your former manner of life…lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit…and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Ephesians 4:22-24, NASB)

And to the Colossians, he wrote:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.
Rid yourselves of all such things. (Colossians 3:5, 8, NASB)

Father, Your promises are always a call to faith, and
faith always demands action.
My faith is in You.
I believe that in Jesus Christ, Your divine power has given us
everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3, NIV).
I believe that as I walk in the light,
I have unbroken fellowship with You, and
You deliver me from all sin (1 John 1:7).
I believe that as I turn to You and trust You,
You help me lay aside my old self and
put on the new self You have created for me.
Holy God, I believe that as I trust and obey You,
You help me purify my heart and mind and life.

Praise to You, Father!
Continue to make me more and more like Your pure and beautiful Son,
Jesus Christ!

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Holy in Me
Recording
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Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

2014-01-14 Beatitudes, Devotional with Hymn No comments

This is the sixth of an eleven-part series on the Beatitudes.
Each part features a hymn to a familiar tune.

Jesus’ fourth beatitude is this:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Matthew 5:6, NASB)

We are not self-sufficient, self-contained beings.
We have needs outside ourselves:
food, water, and air,
shelter and security,
relationships and fellowship,
purpose and meaning,
knowledge and wisdom.

We are needy, and
the Source of all things is God.
We need God in absolutely every way.
We are inherently, completely, eternally, inescapably dependent on Him.

But we have broken our relationship.
We have turned away from Him and
have tried to supply our needs through other sources.
But all these sources are
secondary and shallow,
temporary and painfully inadequate.
We have aspired to be gods,
self-sufficient and
self-contained.
But we are not and
can never be.

This is especially true of our greatest need,
a need we rarely face and only vaguely realize:
We need help to be who we ought to be.
Our most desperate need is our inward weakness.
On our own, we cannot think or act as truth demands.
We sense this weakness,
but we don’t want to admit it to ourselves or to others.
We don’t grasp how broad it is or how deep it goes.
Our own will-power is no match for this weakness,
and none of our reasoning or acquired wisdom can enable us to conquer it.
We are deeply wrong, and
we cannot make ourselves right.

Father, You are completely right, and
we long to be right as You are right.
O God, we are hungry for it.
We are thirsty for it—
so
very
thirsty.
We’ve tried and tasted everything else, and nothing satisfies.
Nothing can touch this hunger, this thirst.
All that we’ve tried is like drinking dust:
it only makes us more thirsty.

Our God, we hear Your invitation:

Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost. (Isaiah 55:1, NASB)

We come to You.
We turn to You, thirsty for Your own Spirit to fill us.
Jesus said:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive. (John 7:37-39, NASB)

As we come, we find that You are not far away.
Before we ever thought of coming to You,
You came to us.
You gave Yourself to us,
You who are the Living Bread.
Jesus said:

“I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” (John 6:35, NASB)

You Yourself are the Water of Life.
Jesus promised us this:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14, NASB)

Almighty God, our Creator, our Father,
You Yourself are what we long for.
You Yourself are what we need.
We hunger and thirst for Your rightness.
We hunger and thirst
for You.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: We Taste Your Life and Long for More
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics