“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). It is lack of purity in our heart that blinds our eyes. There are many things about God that He reveals to those whose hearts are pure. Jesus spoke about the eye being the lamp of the body in Luke 11:34. I want to connect that passage with Matthew 5:8 (“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”). 

“When your eye is clear your whole body is full of light” (Luke 11:34). If you want to know what it means to be blind, just shut your eyes and you know what blindness is. All the light outside is not coming in anymore and so you cannot see anything. “The lamp of the body is the eye, but if your eye is bad or blind or full of cataracts, then your whole body is full of darkness. Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness. If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, then it will be wholly illumined” (Luke 11:34-36).

This verse is a reference to the conscience. The conscience is the eye of the heart. When you keep your conscience clear, your heart is filled with light, and you can see God. But when you neglect to keep your conscience clear, which means you did something wrong and you don't confess it – if you don't take the blame for it, and you try to put the blame on somebody else - the eye becomes dim little by little and you lose your vision of God. You can still have a head full of knowledge of the Bible, but you won't see God anymore, because that has nothing to do with head knowledge; that has to do with purity of heart.

There is another possible way of looking at this verse. We can say that this also refers to seeing God in all our circumstances when our heart is pure. When my heart is pure, I can look around and I see God in all my circumstances, in everything He does and in everything He says. I can say that God is in control, and even in the evil that other people do to me, I can see God using that for my good. Jesus could see God in the most evil thing that happened to Him. When the Roman soldiers came to capture Him in Gethsemane, all that Peter could see was this crooked betrayer Judas betraying Jesus Christ and the evil Roman soldiers coming to capture his Master. But Jesus did not see them. He said, “The cup which My Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” The postman may have been Judas Iscariot, or the Pharisees and the high priest, but ultimately the cup came from the Father. What does it matter if the postman looks like an evil man, if the letter came from your beloved? 

Jesus’ heart was pure; therefore, He saw God in everything. That is why He could accept being captured, humiliated, and crucified. His heart was pure and He saw God in everything. When we love God with all of our hearts and we are called according to His purpose, then everything works together for good (Romans 8:28). If our heart is pure, then God makes it all work for good, and when we look at the evil that other people do to us in circumstances that don't seem to fit in with our desire, we can say “God is there.” This is why there is tremendous blessing in pursuing purity of heart. 

As we understand more Scripture, we will see Jesus more clearly in Scripture. Many people study Scripture and don't see Jesus. They see a doctrine and they fight for a doctrine. But when our heart is pure and our eyes are clear, the same Scripture, where somebody else sees a doctrine, will reveal Jesus. We see the glory of Jesus that the Holy Spirit brings out, and it draws our heart to Him and helps us be able to follow Him more closely.

We must have a constant cry in our hearts to God day and night, as Jesus said, in the parable of the widow (see Luke 18:7 – “God’s elect cry to him day and night”). We must have a cry like that widow for freedom from our enemy’s power, and for a life of purity and power, where we never lose the fire of the Holy Spirit. We must fear even a single sinful thought (whether of impurity or hatred or worldliness or the love of money), more than we fear the disease of AIDS. God said at one time in Israel that there was no one who “stirred himself to lay hold of God” (Isaiah 64:7). Even Timothy had to “kindle afresh” the fire of the Spirit that was within him (2 Timothy 1:6). God does nothing automatically in us, for that would rob us of our free will. But He is mighty to help us, when He sees the slightest desire within us, for Him, and for His best in our lives.

Blessed are those who seek with all their heart to keep their conscience pure before God and men, like Paul did, and who are thereby pure in heart, because they will see God all the time — in the Word, and in their circumstances.