A Trued Heart

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

What It Is Speaking to Me

When it comes to construction and carpenters, the quality of the work a person does on the parts nobody will ever see tells you almost everything about them. The stud framing. The insulation behind the drywall. The wiring inside the wall. The concrete footing underground. Nobody's going to come to your house and ask to see your footing, your insulation and wiring, or the stud walls. And yet it is either done right or it isn't. And eventually, one way or the other, you find out.

Jesus spent a lot of time talking about the heart. In this verse, the Beatitude isn't "blessed are the people who act right." It's blessed are the pure in heart. It isn't about the paint on the walls, it is about the construction behind the walls.

To look at it from a different angle, purity of heart isn't about perfection. It's about integration: the inside matching the outside. In fact, its the very opposite thing that Jesus called the Pharisees out for all the time: looking clean on the surface while something else entirely is going on underneath.

Here is one more angle (construction term!). It is entirely possible to do the "right" thing for the wrong reason. Which in a way makes it wrong. Examples: to give generously only because someone is watching. To hold your tongue to the person's face while mentally screaming exactly what you wish you had said, and then playing it on a loop, for three days.

T

he action was right. The heart wasn't. That gap is what this verse is talking about. To quote from our friends across the pond on their favorite transportation system: Mind the Gap.

What Is It Saying to You?

Is there an area of your life where your actions and your heart are telling two different stories?What would it look like if the inside of the wall matched the outside?

What Are We Going to Do About It?

Make a commitment to be as virtuous in your private thoughts and intentions as you are in public actions today.

PS> "trued" in carpentry means something is correctly aligned.