ULTERIOR MOTIVES OR PROMISE BREAKER?

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." Matthew 5:8 (CSB)

Being pure in heart does not mean being perfect.  After all, no one can attain perfection. If they could, they wouldn’t “see God”, they would “be God”!

In fact, there are two meanings for this phrase that deserves our attention.

The first and more common meaning is keeping our hearts in line with our actions, and vice versa. Being pure in heart, in this sense, means that what we do truly reflects who we are.  The second meaning of being “pure in heart” is that we are focused on. I’ll explain that tomorrow, but let’s look first at this idea that what we do reflects who we really are.

First – our actions match our hearts and our hearts match our actions.

I’m going to share with you a couple of examples that have a common theme running through them. Hopefully, they will cast light on what being “pure in heart” means.

Have you ever been helped by someone, only to find out that they helped you because they wanted to get something from you? What I’m referring to is called “acting with ulterior motives”
– someone tells you that they are helping you for one reason, but they have another reason that they are keeping hidden from you. It’s the kind of help that, offered freely at the time,
we later find out actually came with a price. And more often than not, that price is far higher than the help given.

Or have you ever had someone say they would do one thing, and then do another? Jesus told a story about a man who had two sons: He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered.

Neither son followed through on his promise, but the first son still did the right thing. He refused to help, but changed his mind and went to the vineyard. He had the wrong answer but eventually did the right action. The second son gave the right answer but did the wrong action. Taken into our world, making a promise and not going through with it is just as wrong, and just as potentially damaging.

Did you catch the common theme running through both examples?

The common theme running through both is hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is the opposite of maintaining a pure heart. When our actions speak against our hearts, or when what we say does not match up with what we do, we are guilty of hypocrisy. And hypocrisy was a sin that Jesus saved his harshest criticism for.

Tomorrow, let us look at the second meaning. Today, check yourself, can you find any hypocrisy? Ulterior motives or Promise breaking? What can you do to change this?