Cultivating a P.U.R.E. Heart, Part 1

September, 2008

by: Brock Bolde

Without question, purity is the standard that God calls each and every one of His saints to possess. In Galatians 5:19 we are told: “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality,” The list goes on, but ends with the sobering warning in v.21: “that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” In Ephesians 5:3 we read: “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;” In 1 Thessalonians 4:7 Paul writes: “For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.”

Our purity, or lack of it, matters greatly to God. And yet we live in a day and age that makes it difficult to cultivate a P.U.R.E. heart. We live in a day and age that requires us to be on guard—24/7! No longer is it safe to look at the bus driving by; forget looking at the billboards or bus stop advertisements; even the supermarket isn’t safe with it’s blatant bombardment of scantily dressed women that await you on the covers of the magazines at the check-out stands. This doesn’t even get into the vast array of trash that is brought into many homes through the television. Combine that with the blitz of movies that come out with their impure images and themes and you have a real recipe for disaster. And then, as if all of that weren’t enough, there is the epidemic of the century – the internet. I am convinced that the internet has the single greatest potential of rendering those within the church ineffective as it lures more and more men into its powerful grip.

So, how do we cultivate a P.U.R.E. heart while living in an impure culture? How do we progress in this process called sanctification in a society that seems bent on preventing it? In this series, I want to offer you 4 practices that are meant to assist you in the battle. These 4 practices are by no means exhaustive, but if practiced they will help you to cultivate a P.U.R.E. heart. In an effort to help you remember them, I’ve laid them out in an acrostic that spells the word PURE!

The first practice that you must engage in if you are to cultivate a P.U.R.E. heart is to Pursue God! It is next to impossible to pursue God and sin at the same time. The moment that you allow your mind to start dwelling on that which is impure is the moment that, for all intents and purposes, you stop pursuing God. The moment that you allow your mind to feast at the banquet table of impurity is the moment that you stop pursuing the One who offers you the bread of life. You need to understand that God does not just want you pursuing Him some of the time, He wants you to pursue Him all of the time. This means that we must not allow our minds to wander away from Him – we must be in a constant pursuit of knowing Him still more. And get this, the more we know Him, the more we will want to pursue Him. The more we come to see the wonder and glory and the splendor of His being – the more we will want to live for Him and do what He calls us to do! (see Psalm 34:8-10).

While there are many ways that we can go about seeking God, there are two that I want to challenge each of you to practice on a regular basis – they are reading your Bible and prayer. D.L. Moody had this to say about the Bible:

“I never saw a useful Christian who was not a student of the Bible.” And it has been rightly said of prayer that [it] “will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.”

The more we pursue God, the less likely we are to fall prey to the schemes and snares of Satan. Bible reading and prayer are two practical ways that we can Pursue God, and the more we Pursue God, the more we will cultivate a P.U.R.E. heart.