Finding Pureness

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

FINDING PURENESS

Prov 17:3

3 The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart.

NIV

The fact that both silver and gold must undergo a treatment of extreme heat to separate the purest form from anything that would have been mixed in with it is a simply fact known by all. It does not take the Wisdom of Solomon to understand the dross is separated from the pure metal by heat. But with the heart that is a different story. It would seem that God purifies our heart through fire, or adversity. This is not to find the dross or the faults of our heart or character, but to find the purest form of our heart. God desires to separate anything from our character that would distract from us being the purest form of his image. That is why he send Jesus to become the sacrifice for our dross, our sin, that which keeps us from being pure. Through this process we have been made pure if we accept Jesus into our heart. God then sees us through the blood of Jesus, he sees a heart filled with Jesus, pure and blameless. Yes it is true that in the human sense our heart may never be absolutely pure as the finest gold or silver, but the human heart will never inherit the kingdom of God, for we are told that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but that we will all be changed. What is corruptible will be made incorruptible and what is mortal will be made immortal. So it is with our human hearts. It is and will be always deceitfully wicked, but through the power of Jesus, God sees us as a pure image of him. If we communion with Jesus, if we are in Christ and he is us then our hearts have been tested and found pure. Surely we cannot simply go about our sinful ways and expect a pure heart just because of Jesus. Certainly we must make every effort to free ourselves from wicked ways. We must do all that we are humanly possible to live a life pleasing to God and the purest form of that is accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. That pleases God more than anything we could do that we label “good works”. The purest form of testing our hearts is to find Jesus there.