I hope everyone's doing well in the super cold and frosty morning.
And you found joy in the Lord in it.
I feel like the older I get, the more bitter I get to the cold.
So I have to check my heart.
Because we got to thank Him for that.
There's so much beauty in the cold.
There's so much of His grace that is shown in our bodies,
how it responds to the cold.
Today, I'm going to talk about
purity.
And before I talk about that,
I had a conversation with the Lord of what He wanted me to share
with His body, with His bride.
And as the Lord is so beautiful in the way He speaks to us,
but He led me down the rabbit hole of my life.
And usually when we speak, or at least in my case,
whenever I speak, it's something that I'm living through.
It's a revelation that the Lord gave me
and I'm trying to walk it out with Him.
But the first question that arose in my mind
is why do we go to church?
Right?
Do we go to church for ourselves?
Oh, because we need healing?
Or I need deliverance?
Or I need to receive a word from the Lord?
Is that the reason?
Or do we come for community?
I just want to fit in.
I want to have friendships.
I want to have relationships.
I want to have a sense of family.
Because if that is the case,
you're going to get offended really quick.
Because that's not the point of coming to church.
It's not the point of the gathering of the saints.
That's a result of the gathering of the saints.
But that is not the reason for the gathering of the saints.
The reason is to encounter the Lord,
to come and love on Him,
to come and know Him,
to feel His presence.
Not for our sake, but for His,
because of what Jesus did on that cross.
He needs to receive His reward
and I want to give it to Him
in any capacity that I can.
So if that means coming to church,
even though I'm tired,
even though I have two hours of sleep,
or I might have a cough,
or my kids are cranky,
I'm going to make it to service.
So I want to give my Lord the reward that He deserves,
the reward that He died for.
So sometimes we got to check ourselves.
Sometimes it becomes a routine.
Are we coming because it's a routine?
Are we coming because it's the right thing to do?
In other words, self-righteousness.
Well, I know it's the right thing to do.
So I'm going to go,
because either I was brought up that way,
or my friends go.
But really, that's an act of self-righteousness,
because you know it's a good thing to do,
so you're going to choose to do it.
That's the beauty of the Lord.
It doesn't matter what programs are going.
It doesn't matter if the worship band is perfect
and their performance is great.
It doesn't matter if the speaker has charisma.
It's the Lord that draws us here.
Because we see so many churches.
Igor and I, like we've said it as our testimony,
we have seen so many churches that have that.
They have a pastor full of charisma that knows how to speak.
They have a worship band that is immaculate.
But something is missing.
And it's because the Lord's not there.
Because he's like a magnet.
Once you taste him, you're like,
I'm going to do anything I can just to taste him again.
So why do we go to church?
Why do we go to conferences?
Why do we go to services?
Why do we go to prayers?
Why do we go to meetings?
It should be the Lord.
And if it's not, we got to realign ourselves with the Lord.
We got to repent and ask him for forgiveness
and to realign, renew our mind
and our mindset to be aligned with his word
for him to be our one thing.
That's the whole point.
He is our one thing.
So we're going to read out of Matthew 5.8.
We're actually going to read out of a couple of scriptures.
But Matthew 5.8,
blessed are the poor in heart
for they shall...
Oh, sorry, not poor.
Blessed are the pure in heart
for they shall see God.
I was thinking that I'm like, it's the spirit,
not the heart, but sorry.
Blessed are the pure in heart
for they shall see God.
So if we come to a service,
a meeting, a prayer, a teaching,
and the Lord's not there,
well, if we want to see him,
people have to have a pure heart.
Or else we won't see him.
So to see God in a movement,
in our prayers, to see God in a movement,
in our services, through the preachings,
in our meetings, in our teachings,
to see God move in our personal lives,
in our relationships with our spouse
and our kids and our friends and our family,
to see God move in our gatherings
or to see him move in our conferences,
we need a pure heart.
I need a pure heart if I want to see the Lord.
Because it starts with me first,
not because I'm your pastor
or because I'm up here on stage.
It's a personal, it's a personal decision
one-on-one, a child of God with her father
saying, I need that pure heart.
And if I choose to live in a pure heart,
I will see the Lord.
And if I speak that out
and share a testimony of how I live with a pure heart,
they'll impact your heart
and then you will start living in a pure heart.
And it's like a fire.
And I love how the Lord uses fire
as one of his, like, symbolisms
or one of his categories
to describe something.
Because with a fire, we all know fire.
One little lit match
can cause chaos to everything around it.
And it's interesting because purity
actually a lot of people don't want to talk about purity.
And I was thinking this through my mind with the Lord
because he started downloading a bunch of things to me
and I'm like, oh, this is good and good.
And then I started thinking, I'm like, ooh,
people can see that as self-righteousness.
And it's so unfortunate
because as soon as people think self-righteousness,
well, I'm doing this.
Then people back away and like, no, no, no.
We're not gonna do that. We're not gonna be pure.
We're not gonna talk about purity.
We can like dance around the word purity or pure
because it's such a thin line
between purity, oh, I'm gonna choose to be pure,
of a response of the Lord
or a response of our self-righteousness.
And a lot of people don't want to talk about that.
And like I said, it's unfortunate
because if we want to see God, we need a pure heart.
So how can we get a pure heart?
Psalm 119.
So I'm gonna read from two different versions
or three different versions
because I like how these versions talk it through.
So the first is ESV.
How can a young man keep his way pure
by guarding it according to your word?
And it's interesting because it says young man
and I don't know about you, I feel pretty young.
But I know the older I get, the younger my spirit gets.
I'm like, I'm not 34, I'm 22.
And it's interesting how our body gets older and it ages
but we still feel so young inside.
Like we can do everything, right?
So how can a young man keep his way pure
by guarding it according to the word?
The New King James Version says how can a young man cleanse his way
by taking heed according to your word?
Yours is capitalized as it's talking about God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the Trinity,
and it's talking about their word.
But I like the amplified version too.
How can a young man keep his way pure
by keeping watch on himself according to your word,
conforming his life to your precepts?
So we can keep our way and way by as in a passage
or a progress on a course, that's our life, right?
We're walking a certain way in our life.
Our life is a way.
It's a passage through this time.
It's a course that we're in.
So we can keep our way pure.
How? In simple terms, by following the word,
the truth of God, which is written in the Bible
that was inspired by the Holy Spirit
who dwells in us and confirms it.
Let me read that again.
In simple terms, to keep our way pure,
we follow the Word, we follow the truth of God,
which is in the Bible.
This is the inspired Word of God
written through Holy Spirit by vessels that he loves.
So it's following the Word of God
written in the Bible
that was inspired by the Holy Spirit
who dwells in us now and it confirms it in the Word.
There's many times that I...
there's something in my spirit that I know.
It's like a revelation I know,
but then somebody else speaks it out.
I'm like, oh, that's the words to what I'm feeling inside.
You're confirming.
I just didn't know how to spit it out.
And that person confirmed it through a certain way
that the Lord asked them to speak it out in.
And so that's what it's talking...
that's what I'm talking about.
It's like there's something...
this Holy Spirit's going to be doing stuff in you.
And sometimes either it's in a service
or a conversation or a post or something.
And you're like, yes, that's exactly what I'm feeling.
That bears witness with me
because that is the words that I can't formulate.
So with this, it's interesting
because one of the rabbit holes the Lord took me on.
And I didn't...
there was so much more that he gave me,
but I'm just going to share a snippet.
He took me to Exodus chapter 30.
And I was thinking...
it actually came out of a scripture
that Pastor Mary talked about last week.
And I can't remember what it was,
but it was talking about being in alignment
and not having like alignment to other things.
But it was talking a little bit later on
of like it was taking a scripture out of the Old Testament
saying they will be my people.
I will be their God.
It was like in that context.
And it brought me back to Exodus 30.
And it's talking about the altar.
There's an altar of incense.
That's before the Lord.
And it's interesting because the incense
is actually a representation of our heart.
So Exodus 30...
there we go.
Okay.
One, it says,
you shall make an altar to burn incense on
and the Lord takes them through how to build this altar.
And in verse 6,
and you shall put it before the veil
that is before the ark of the testimony.
Before the mercy seat,
that is over the testimony
where I will meet with you.
So this incense...
I talk about it in my prayers
because it's a revelation of the Lord.
I always pray, Father,
when I am here and I want to encounter you
and I want to see you
and I want to worship you
and I want to love on you,
may you find a pleasing aroma
an incense that fills your throne room
that your eyes churn and say,
what's that smell?
And that comes from a pure heart
because with a pure heart
I can worship the Lord.
There's no mixture.
There's no contamination.
It says,
you shall put it before the veil
that is before the ark of the testimony
and the mercy seat
that is over the testimony
and I will meet you.
And Aaron, Cheryl, burn on it
sweet incense every morning.
So this incense,
which is a representation of our heart
it's interesting that they do it in the morning
that Aaron lights this incense
and starts it in the morning
which to me,
that's...
if I wake up with a decision
of I'm choosing the Lord today
most of my decisions after that
will be choosing the Lord.
We'll be loving on Him.
If my first thought,
I remember when I was in youth
I was so hungry for the Lord
and a youth pastor at the time
there was like six of us, maybe four
and our youth, he was a leader,
youth leader, man such a...
such a humble and anointed man
that was so like hidden
everyone just went over him
and it was unfortunately
because people just didn't treat him right
but he had such wisdom
and I remember once he was talking
he's like I wake up every morning
praising the Lord and giving him
like my time in the morning
of loving on him, thank you Lord
he's like my thought, the first thing I wake up
my thought is on the Lord
and I remember being a hungry teenager
and I'm like God, I want that
and it didn't happen the next morning
because I had to practice it
some things are given supernaturally
in my life what I've learned
most things are something that I have to work out
I have to die to my flesh and choose him
and so the next morning
I woke up and I went straight to my phone
and then that little voice
oh man, I was supposed to think of the Lord
I forgot about that
so then I'm like Lord I'm so sorry
the next morning same thing I'd reach to my phone
and then again a slight little tap
and I'm like oh Lord I'm so sorry
I want you to be my first thought
and what's wild is that
I don't even exactly remember when
it started happening so naturally after that
because I had to die to my flesh
and choose him and in that response
the Lord is so beautiful
I take one step to him
and he takes three steps to me
and that's an analogy I'm not saying
that's exactly how he works but
that's an analogy
So if I make one tiny baby step, the Lord's like, okay, I'll get a little bit closer.
And he's so merciful in that. He's so good in that.
So I remember it happened so naturally. And it was like, maybe a month in.
And I woke up and I'm like, Lord, I love you. Thank you. Thank you for this day.
You're my bridegroom. And then I remembered, wait a second.
And obviously it wasn't me. It was the Lord saying, hey,
have you noticed that you've been thinking about me every morning?
And it was such a blessing for me.
So here they burnt incense in the morning. And I think there's something special about that.
So then later on, so this talks about building the altar of incense.
Later on in verse 30 or chapter 30, it talks about actually making the incense.
It says, and the Lord said to Moses, take sweet spice.
And he goes on so forth, so on and so forth, talking about different spices and oils to take of equal amounts.
And he says, hey, put them all together.
It says, according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure and holy.
That's what he talks about all of these incense, or not incense, all of these oils and spices.
And a little bit later on, and it says, and it shall put some of it before the testimony in the Tabernacle of Meeting,
where I will meet with you.
And he talks about again the altar of incense right before the testimony, right before the veil.
And he says, and it shall be most holy to you.
But as for the incense which you make, you shall not make any for yourselves.
So this heart decision, this pure heart, this incense that we're bringing and we're making before the Lord,
we're choosing to make before the Lord.
He says, it can't be for yourself.
That's interesting because we've been thinking about all year about dying to ourselves.
It's not about what I want, Lord, it's about what you want.
It's not what I want in the situation, it's about what you want.
It's not what I deserve in the situation, it's what you want.
And he says, because it's so holy, it shall be most holy, the most holy to you.
He said, do not make any for yourselves.
It shall be to you holy for the Lord.
This is set apart oil for him.
This incense is for him, this heart, this pure heart.
It's for him.
And then when I come into a time where I want to be with him, whether it's in public or whether it's in private,
he ignites that flame and it brings aroma to his throne room.
And it's holy, only for him.
It's not for myself so that I can receive the glory so that I can pray for people and they fall over
so that I can touch this person and they get healing
so that everyone can look at me and be like, wow, look at that man and woman of God.
No, it's for him. It's holy. It's pure.
So what do we do with this word?
We talked about how we get a pure heart, the word of God says,
by guarding or by heeding, taking heed or keeping watch according to his word.
And what do we do with this word?
First Peter 1.22.
It says, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth
for a sincere brotherly love, one another earnestly from a pure heart.
So when we follow the word of God, like it says in that first scripture in Psalm 119,
if we want to have a pure way, if we want to choose to have a pure way,
we have to take heed, we have to watch, we have to guard according to the word.
Now what do we do with this word?
We're obedient. So when we follow the word of God, God will in turn ask us of things,
which means death to self.
So when we follow the word of God,
whether we're just new in Christ a couple months, a couple years,
or we've been in the faith for a while,
the beauty of God is sometimes we always have to be realigned.
So when we choose, okay Lord, I want to be pure, I want to see you, I want a pure heart.
I'm going to choose that way, which means following the word of God,
taking heed to the word of God.
So I'm going to read the word of God, and by reading this word of God,
He will start asking you, in other words, convicting you of things and saying,
hey, you need to get rid of this, you need to apologize for this, you can't do this anymore.
Some things are kind of basic, right? We're like lying.
It's like I can't have you not lie anymore.
I can't have you bear false witness, in other words, exaggeration.
You want a pure heart? It talks about it also in another scripture.
I don't have it here, I don't think.
Oh it does, it's the next scripture I talk about, but it says,
do not keep deceit on your lips, on your tongue.
False witness is a form of exaggeration.
You're bearing false witness over something.
So he's going to, once we read this word, he's going to ask us of things,
death to self, it can be basic where it covers all,
everything covers all.
But as we mature in the Lord, there's certain things that are personal to our personality,
where he's like, yeah, you can't do this anymore.
Sometimes it's for a season.
He's like, hey, I don't, I don't want you to have this anymore.
One of my testimonies is I grew up in a Slavic culture,
and one of the main goals of every young girl is to get married before she's 19,
because after 19 she's old.
And it's wild to think, because at 19 I'm like, you're a baby,
you don't know anything yet.
But I remember having this desire,
and I started encountering the Lord when I was 16.
So by the time I hit 19, I haven't met anyone,
and I'm like, Lord, I just, I want to get married.
I want a husband, I want children.
It was like part of my personality.
It's just the way God created me.
I was like a mother to all these little kids,
and I just loved it.
I drank it up.
And I remember him asking me, he's like, okay,
what if you never get married?
Oh, I was so scared to think that.
But obviously I wasn't thinking that it was the Lord.
And I was like, no, that, that can't be the Lord.
The whole word of God talks about marriage
from the cover to cover.
It talks about marriage.
What do you mean, never get married?
That's your design, Lord.
He's like, what if you never get married?
What if you never get the husband,
and you never get the children?
I wrestled with the Lord for two weeks.
I was exhausted.
It was such a hard decision.
But at the end, I remember distinctly saying,
I love you too much.
I will give it up.
And from the age of 19,
I think to 21.
I think I met Igor in 21.
From 19 to 21,
I legitimately thought I was never going to...
I died to it.
And it's so beautiful because the decision was hard to make.
And following through with that decision was hard to make.
But like I said in the earlier testimony,
all of a sudden it became natural.
That desire.
I thought about a husband and kids.
I'm like, yeah, that mean I'll miss it.
But like, oh Lord, you're too precious.
What I received for dying to that was way...
Never.
I'd rather live celibate and I'd rather live alone.
I'd rather become a nun.
Because he was just so good.
I got to see and experience the side of the Lord
through dying to my flesh.
That was so beautiful, so pure.
And then I remember one year,
I was talking to the Lord and I'm like,
hey, I know I died to this.
And I'm okay not having it.
Because it was like a year thing every January.
I would talk about it.
And the Lord's kind of had a...
I was praying to the God
and he kind of had a bubble out of me like,
I'm ready to get married this year.
I don't remember escaping my lips and I'm like,
I died to this.
Like, I'm never going to get married.
It was already set in my mind.
I was never going to get married.
And that year I met Igor, which was wild.
So when we follow the word of God,
sometimes it's...
it depends on our walk with God
and our maturity in the Lord.
He's going to touch at certain things for us to get rid of
or to die to.
Sometimes it reflects on our personality.
And sometimes it reflects on...
you know, if he's asking me,
hey, I want you to stop exaggerating.
And he won't say that to Abby for another three years.
It depends on my walk with the Lord, right?
So he's going to pick at things in our life of saying,
hey, I don't want that anymore.
And sometimes it's for a season of not getting married.
And then he's like, yep, you passed the test.
Your heart is fully devoted to me here.
You can have the desire of your heart.
Because I know the desire of your heart is me.
And my desire is to fulfill the word of God.
And the word of God talks about marriage from cover to cover.
But he wasn't able to trust me before
with the kind of marriage that he wanted to give me.
So when we follow the word of God,
God will enter and ask of us things,
which is death to self,
in which we purify our souls,
in which automatically can affect our heart.
Religion forces,
but God allows us to choose and respond out of love.
We don't have to follow the word.
We have a free will.
Why do we follow the word?
Because our mom and dad tell us to?
Because it's the right thing to do?
It's like, why do we come to church?
I don't know, it's routine.
There's a community, I have friends.
No, it should always be the Lord.
He's the one that draws us here.
He's the one that draws me to his word
and his word comes alive in my spirit.
And then he gives me revelation
and I walk that revelation out
and I purify my heart.
And then all of a sudden I'm seeing God
in facets that I've never seen God in,
that people don't talk about.
It's a pure heart.
We can force our flesh to comply,
because sometimes I do that, I force my flesh.
Sometimes I don't want to come to service,
sometimes I don't want to do things
that God has asked me to do.
It's a human nature.
We live in a fallen world that rejects the Lord.
It's okay to force our flesh to comply,
but we only do that in response
of our love towards Him.
God has placed me in this position
and there's many times where I don't feel like doing it.
But I'm like, hey, flesh, you don't control me.
I'm doing this because I love the Lord.
And even though it's hard for me
and it's challenging for me,
nothing, nothing is more worth it than Him.
And that's a pure heart.
When you come into the realization
that even doing things you hate to do
or don't like to do
or your flesh is literally warring against you
and you're still choosing Him,
a pure heart, you can purely worship the Lord.
So we can force our flesh to comply,
but we only do that in response of our love towards Him,
not because we want to do it.
Because again, that thin line,
someone can take it and say,
well, that's self-righteousness.
And it can happen where you're like,
oh, yes, I'm doing this for the Lord.
And all of a sudden the Lord taps
and he's like, take a step back.
Where is your motive?
Oh, that's right, Lord.
I'm going to realign myself with your word,
renew my mind.
I'm going to step over here.
I'm doing it in a response to the Lord.
So it can, unfortunately,
cross the line into self-righteousness.
And that's why we have to be so sober and diligent.
That's what the Word of God says.
Be sober and diligent.
We always have to be watchful.
So we can force our flesh to comply,
but we only do that in response
of our love towards Him
in what He asks of us.
If He didn't ask you to do it,
then don't do it.
There will probably a time where He will ask you,
because He's purifying the bride.
He's making her pure.
There are things that we all will need to get rid of.
But if He doesn't ask you to do it now,
don't touch it yet until He asks.
Because then you can open up a can of worms
that you weren't ready to deal with.
That's why His timing is so, so good.
And sometimes we'll do that.
And I'm going to admit to that, I've done that too.
I'm like, your Word says I need to do it.
I don't feel a prompting from you,
but your Word says I'm going to do it.
Okay, maybe that's not a good example,
because it's the Word of God.
Here's another example that I've done.
Where I see it happen in other people's lives.
Where I see it happen in somebody else's lives.
They're going through something,
oh Lord, I want that.
I'm going to do that what they're doing.
So I'm going to follow what that footstep is.
And the Lord's like, I haven't asked you to do that yet.
He's like, you will do that,
because it's written in my Word.
But there's a timeline with the Lord.
I hope I portrayed that correctly.
I feel like that one can...
Purity is hard to talk about.
I really didn't want to talk about this.
I was asking the Lord, please,
because it can be taken in such a way
where it's self-righteousness.
It's a hard topic to talk about.
So we can force our flesh to comply.
But we only do that in response to our love towards Him
in what He asks of us.
And His grace will be shown in the act
because we feel His yoke, which is light and easy.
So when the Lord asks us to do something,
if He says, hey Tanya, I want you to stop exaggerating.
I don't like when you do that.
It's not negative 3500 degrees outside.
Right?
Now there is a sense of humor that the Lord has.
And there are times, but if personally He's like,
hey I don't want you to do that.
Somebody else can, but I don't want you to do that.
Because I have to check my heart.
He sees something in my heart that's impure
and He wants to take it out.
And He said, I don't want you to exaggerate like that.
And I'm like, okay Lord,
I'm going to respond to your request with love.
And when my response, there's going to be a grace
shown from the Lord over my life.
And with that grace, it doesn't mean
that this step is going to be easy.
Walking, this is going to be easy.
But it almost feels like someone's holding your hand
as you do it.
You're like, I thought this was going to be
a little bit harder than expected.
But for some reason, it's working.
Right?
And so there's going to be a grace
that will be shown in the act
of following Him what He requests
because His yoke is easy and light.
I remember there was a time where Igor,
the Lord, asked him to fast.
And at that time, I was pregnant or breastfeeding
or one of those things.
And so I couldn't participate.
But it was like about two years
where the Lord asked him to fast
like a lifestyle fasting every week.
And it's wild because Igor would say like,
I'm not a good wife.
I would always ask him,
hey, what do you want me to make you for food?
And he's like, I'm fasting.
And it would be week after week.
And it's like, Tonya,
why aren't you registering that he's fasting?
I would forget for like months.
But he would say, he's like,
there was just this grace over my fast.
He's like, was it hard?
Yeah, it was hard.
But it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be
because His grace covers us.
He helps us.
His yoke is easy and light.
So purity is no mixture
and no compromise.
That's what purity is.
It's no outside influences.
It's not the influence of our peers.
Purity is pure.
And whenever I think of holy,
I think of God,
you're set apart and you're pure.
The last is Psalm 24-3-6.
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And that's a response to the calling
of the Lord to come up higher.
It's a maturing of our faith.
We can start climbing that mountain,
the hill of the Lord.
And then we can stop and plateau
or start walking around the mountain
instead of going up the mountain.
And that's a response of our heart.
If we don't want to work on things,
he asks us to work on.
So ascending the hill of the Lord
is a response to the calling of the Lord
to come up higher.
He says, come up.
Come up to me.
And to grow in our understanding of the Lord.
So who shall ascend the hill of the Lord
and who shall stand in his holy place?
Who is able to be in his presence
or find fellowship
with not just a friend,
but also has reverence and fear and honor
to a holy set apart and pure being?
That's what it means to stand
in the presence of the Lord.
To stand in his holy place.
It reminds me of Abraham.
When we look through Abraham,
people talk about him as God's friend, right?
And with God's friend,
he had a friendship with the Lord.
He talked with him.
But if you look at all of his responses,
they were weighed with reverence
and honor to the Lord.
So if we want to stand in his holy place,
not only can we stand in boldness of,
hey, I can have a relationship with you.
No, I can have fellowship with you.
But I always have to remember
that he is holy.
He is pure and he is set apart.
He's not our best friend, Daddy God.
There is intimacy there.
There is closeness.
But I still need to hold reverence
and awe and honor unto him.
He, so it talks about
who shall ascend the hill of the Lord
and who shall stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands
and a pure heart.
Clean hands, it's external deeds,
works, acts, expressions, response.
But that's not the first thing we do.
That's actually an expression,
a response of having a pure, clean heart.
A pure heart, it's the res...
all of those things,
the clean hands is a result of a pure heart.
And we already talked about how to get that.
It's a circumcised heart
that is only received from the Lord.
I can't be pure.
I've tried.
But the only way I can be pure
is if the Lord gives me that pure heart.
It comes from him alone.
Who does not lift up his soul
to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully?
This is talking about the person
who can ascend the hill of the Lord
and who can stand in his holy place.
He needs clean hands and a pure heart.
Who does not lift up his soul
to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully?
He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from God,
from the God of his salvation.
I can only receive blessing from God
and I can only receive righteousness,
live a righteous life if it's God's.
I can't attain that.
Such is the generation of those
who seek him, who seek the face of God,
to seek the face of God of Jacob.
I like some of the other translations
and I'm going to be finishing up here soon.
So the last verse, verse 6.
This is the response of this person
who has clean hands.
The response of this person
who can stand in the holy place,
or sorry, who has clean hands,
who has a pure heart,
does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully,
what will happen?
He will receive a blessing from the Lord
and he will receive the righteousness
from God, from the God of his salvation.
Verse 6.
Such is the generation of those
who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob.
New King James says,
this is Jacob.
The generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face.
In Amplified it says this is the generation,
the description of those who diligently
seek him and require him
as their greatest need.
Who seek your face even
as did Jacob.
It's interesting that Jacob's name is there.
And it's not given his new name
as Israel.
It's still given his old name as Jacob
because it's when Jacob was his name.
Jacob is when he was seeking out the Lord.
Sorry, that was a tongue twister.
And it was after the Lord found trust
and he changed his name.
A pure heart.
A pure heart to worship him,
a pure heart to have our incense,
of worship, our incense,
of prayer.
To ascend into his throne room.
An aroma that pleases him.
That causes his eyes to be like
where is that scent coming from?
That's the type of people I want us to be.
That's the type of people the Lord requires of us.
But that's not going to happen on our own will.
We need his pure heart.
But we can walk those steps of faith
because we choose the pure heart,
which is the Word of God.
Which does start to purify our souls,
which affects our heart.
Heavenly Father,
we come before your throne
boldly, Lord, with reverence and honor.
Knowing that you are holy,
you are set apart, you are pure.
What an honor, Father, that we have
that we can boldly come before you
because of your Son.
You are so beautiful in your storyline.
The reason how you created all of this to happen,
it shows your heart, Lord.
I'm asking you for a pure heart.
If we want to see you, Father, in our services,
if we want to see you at open heavens,
if we want to see you in our meetings,
in our prayers,
create in us a pure heart, Lord.
Let us walk this road,
let us choose this way of purity,
of reading your Word, having it renew our minds,
and create a purified soul that affects our heart.