Beatitudes
25
promises with the life of God. The Lord will not fail him in the hour
of suffering and need. “My God shall supply all your need according
to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:19
. And in
the hour of final need the merciful shall find refuge in the mercy
of the compassionate Saviour and shall be received into everlasting
habitations.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see
God.”—Matthew 5:8.
The Jews were so exacting in regard to ceremonial purity that their
regulations were extremely burdensome. Their minds were occupied
with rules and restrictions and the fear of outward defilement, and they
did not perceive the stain that selfishness and malice impart to the soul.
Jesus does not mention this ceremonial purity as one of the condi-
tions of entering into His kingdom, but points out the need of purity of
heart. The wisdom that is from above “is first pure.”
James 3:17
. Into
the city of God there will enter nothing that defiles. All who are to
be dwellers there will here have become pure in heart. In one who is
learning of Jesus, there will be manifest a growing distaste for careless
[25]
manners, unseemly language, and coarse thought. When Christ abides
in the heart, there will be purity and refinement of thought and manner.
But the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” have a
deeper meaning—not merely pure in the sense in which the world
understands purity, free from that which is sensual, pure from lust, but
true in the hidden purposes and motives of the soul, free from pride
and self-seeking, humble, unselfish, childlike.
Only like can appreciate like. Unless you accept in your own
life the principle of self-sacrificing love, which is the principle of
His character, you cannot know God. The heart that is deceived by
Satan, looks upon God as a tyrannical, relentless being; the selfish
characteristics of humanity, even of Satan himself, are attributed to
the loving Creator. “Thou thoughtest,” He says, “that I was altogether
such an one as thyself.”
Psalm 50:21
. His providences are interpreted
as the expression of an arbitrary, vindictive nature. So with the Bible,
the treasure house of the riches of His grace. The glory of its truths,
that are as high as heaven and compass eternity, is undiscerned. To
the great mass of mankind, Christ Himself is “as a root out of a dry