02/13/20 CLEAN HANDS AND A PURE HEART

02/13/20 CLEAN HANDS AND A PURE HEART

Check out these verses, referring to the two distinct areas of the Christian life:
HANDS (life, actions)
and
HEART (state of being).

Hands represent what we do.
Heart represents what we are.

God requires clean hands and a pure heart. They are not one and the same. Both are possible because of the atoning work of Christ. It begins with regeneration and a redeemed life. The saved person has received a new, godly nature (mind of Christ) and begins to live a life of righteousness but he still has the carnal mind, which battles with his new nature. God calls all sinners to have their lives changed and their sins washed away. However, the believer is left with his old nature (the mind that is prone to the flesh), which is in contradistinction to his new nature (the spiritual mind). However, God provides deliverance from the old nature, the sin nature, the carnal mind, the mind of the flesh, the double mind. Once the believer is cleansed, delivered, purified from his carnal mind, his double-mindedness, then he is pure, even as Christ is pure.

Look at these verses.
Psalms 24:3-5
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

James 4:7-8
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

DOUBLE MINDED
James 1:8
8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

James 4:7-8
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Holiness of heart and life are not one and the same, though God calls all sinners to cleanse their hands and all believers to purify their hearts.