Session Seven: Blessed Are The Pure In Heart

In Unit Three we are looking at how we live as members of the Kingdom of God. Last time we looked at the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Now we are going to look some famous sayings from Jesus’ longest sermon. These titles are from the New International Version of the Bible.

In this session, we’ll explore:

• Why God wants us to be pure in heart

• How that relates to holiness

• Why we need to help each other with this

‘Accountability can be more than helpful in the battle to overcome temptation. An accountability partner can be there to encourage you, rebuke you, teach you, rejoice with you, and weep with you. Every Christian should consider having an accountability partner with whom he or she can pray, talk, confide, and confess.’

Kyle Ermoian

1. Reflect

Read Matthew 5: 8

• What do you think Jesus is telling people here? What’s the problem that goes with it? Check out Psalm 24:3-4 if you are unsure.

2. Read

1. 1 John 1: 2-2

   • You have read part of this passage before in the previous unit on Jesus the Light.

   • What does this tell us about purity and God’s attitude towards it?

   • What does confession involve from our perspective and from God’s?

2. James 5: 16

   • Why does James give this advice? What is the strength of having an accountability partner with whom you can be completely honest?

3. Matthew 5: 23-26

   • What does this tell us about the importance of maintaining right relationships with

     others? Why does this matter?

4. Matthew 18: 15-20

   • How are we to resolve disputes in the Church?

   • How does this relate to purity?

5. Ecclesiastes 4: 9-12

   • How can having an accountability partner help us to keep our lives on the right track with regard to purity and other aspects of discipleship

Need help? Here are some hints…

1. God lives in purity and those that live with Him must also live that way. The problem is

   we are not pure in heart - not in our actions, thoughts or intentions.

2. From our perspective it involves coming clean with God and developing a radical

   honesty with Him. We must admit the truth about our lives. From His perspective it

   involves radical sacrifice - giving Jesus as the atoning sacrifice.

3. James is concerned that people live righteous lives and are willing both to forgive and

   seek forgiveness when offence occurs. This is at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer - forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

4. Admitting our mistakes promptly and looking to maintain right relationships with others

   not only enables us to stay in the right place in our relationship with God but encourages them to do the same.

5. Having someone to whom you can speak the truth about your life is an extremely

   helpful idea. Satan loves to taunt us with our failures and shame us with our secrets.

   Having someone else to whom, you have to speak about your shortcomings enables you

   to deal with that. It also acts as deterrent to wrong actions if you know you’ve got to share them with someone. See also Proverbs 27:17

3. Act

• Read Psalm 51

• In what ways does this help us as we consider how we repent of our impurity?

• Put that into action.

4. Pray

• About anything that God has said to you as a result of this study.

• For situations that challenge our call to live pure lives.

• About someone that could be an accountability partner for you.