DAY SEVEN: Happy Are the Pure

Grace empowers us to grow in holiness.

By the Holy Spirit, when we believe in Christ for salvation, we are grafted into him; because we are in Christ, what is true of him becomes true of us. He became like us so we can become like him. This is the good life.

For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. (Heb. 10:14 NLT)

All that we could never be or measure up to, Jesus is for us. As our representative, Jesus is our “enough,” our “measuring up.” Jesus, the Second Person of the Great I AM, is everything that we need to have the good life. Without his grace, we can never be pure of heart and clean enough to see God. The God who requires purity and cleanness becomes the sacrifice that makes the impure pure and the unclean clean.

Often our lack of happiness is interwoven with the lack of happiness that we have in ourselves. For whatever reason—maybe something awful was done to us or we did something awful, or we just feel unworthy, unknown, or unloved—we constantly feel a nagging sense of sadness rooted in our own inadequacy. Maybe you feel like you should be at a different place in your life by now? It’s hard to be happy if you think that you suck.

As we come to embrace that all of who Jesus is, is all of who we are, we will begin to see ourselves the way God sees us.

Our union in Christ is our reunion as the Father’s beloved children.

God’s children are worthy.

God’s children are known.

God’s children are loved.

All this is true because the Son of God created sons and daughters of God who are now eternally united to him. His sacred status is our sacred status. We are his and he is ours. Our lives are forever-and-ever engrafted into his, so much so that God the Father sees us as him.

Do you find this hard to believe? Good! I hope you do. Grace, when it’s really grace, seems too good to be true because it’s too great for our minds to conceive. Nevertheless, it is true.

Jesus is the pure and clean One who invites us by faith to participate in his purity and cleanness. It is through his mercy and grace that we can see God.

READ Revelation 4:11.

Why is it important to have a high and lofty view of God?

PRAY

Lord Jesus, we had no hope of being pure in our heart, so you became our purity. We had no hope of removing our sin, shame, and guilt. But you, inspired by love, eternally removed our sin, our shame, and our guilt by the shedding of your own blood. We are pure in heart, and we can see you, God, only because of you. May the rest of our lives be a happy response to this grace that we didn’t deserve. In your name, amen.