February 17 – Prayer from a Pure Heart
Psalm 24:4-5: He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. 5 He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This wonderful old hymn teaches us the simplicity of prayer.
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
Even a child can pray, a tiny toddler can utter a prayer and the Heavens will shake because it comes from a pure heart. Pure prayer simply pours out of the heart, it may be from a young child, a simply housewife, a laborer on the fields. It does help to pray through the words of the Bible, but even if you may not be so schooled in the Bible, God sees the intent and purity of your heart.
Three very important qualities are needed for pure prayer and these are:
Purity and a love for God. If I have a divided soul, this will fall out of line. If one is deceiving, lying and cheating, purity is lost. If you are a soul who loves God not because of what you can get out of Him but simply because of who is He, you are in His heart because you delight in Him. He will automatically give you the desires of your heart, many times, you don’t even have to ask! Sometimes, people only convert to Christianity because of wanting to be healed, if that is so, in the test of time, they will quickly return back to their old religion. If they converted to Christ because they loved Him, out of pure love, their motive is pure and nothing can ever shake them. The Holy Spirit will dwell in them to give them double strength.
Motive: Our motives are most crucial in Heaven. For example, if I pray for all my books to sell well, but if my motive is so that I would earn a lot of money or look for fame, my heart is not rightly aligned to God, and very often my prayers will be blocked. Sometimes, God delays our blessings because He first wants to do a deeper richer spiritual work in us. If I pray that my books sell well because I want other people to rightly inspired and blessed and even closer to the Lord, then my motive is pure and God will honor it.
A heart that holds no grudges, no revenge, no jealousy, and no lust or adultery is heard by God. This person’s prayer prevails over all others. Make sure our hearts are kind, forgiving, clean and pure.
Rita
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