Clean Hands and a Pure Heart

Day 271 of Photo Inspirations — Clean Hands and a Pure Heart
Ever find little finger prints on your glass doors or windows or walls?  Little chocolate or muddy hands had left their imprint.  The evidence was real.  We recognized those finger prints.

Those were the times when those little guys had no idea of what those little finger prints would do. It took some maturing and repetitive correcting for them to finally learn to use a napkin or washcloth to clean away the evidence.

Now, that we’re all grown up — we know better.  Our clothes stay clean.  Our faces stay clean (well most of the time – thankfully good friends tell us if we have something on our face).

We tend to focus a lot on outward cleaning of our hands.  There are so many ways to clean them: antibacterial soap, body wash, bars of soap, foamy or gel soap.  But, this scripture refers to what’s going on in our hearts.

Psalm 24:3, 4 “Who may climb the mountain of the Lord and enter where he lives?  Who may stand before the Lord?   ONLY THOSE WITH CLEAN HANDS AND PURE HEARTS, who do not practice dishonesty and lying.”

There are so many ways to clean our hearts:  medications, self help books, therapy, counseling, mental affirmations.  Of course all those things help, but letting God’s super-power cleaning system do the work in us, then we’ll really know “clean hands and pure heart”.

Clean hands and pure hearts.  Those are the hands and hearts of those who know better than to allow the stains and dirtiness of the world – lying, dishonesty, cheating, envying, complaining, and deceiving – to “mess up” our relationship with God.  We do our best to keep our hands and hearts pure and clean, because the rewards for being “good kids” are so great.  We get to sit at the “adult” table where the benefits are so many.

My prayer is from Psalm 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me!”  Clean hands on the outside and clean and pure hands and heart on the outside.