Blessed Are the Pure In Heart

Many years ago I was walking in a cemetery in Tennessee with my earthly father, Harris R. Eldridge Sr. We were reading names and dates. Although epitaphs are concise, I find them very interesting. Many times you'll find "Gone but not forgotten" and so forth. After I read my Uncle Hamp Spicer's epitaph I have never forgotten it. In fact it is from Matthew 5:8: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." After I read that Bible verse on my uncle's headstone, the finality of life vividly came into focus. If we want to see God at the end of our lives we are going to have to keep and maintain a "pure" heart. Our heart is our "mind" where our faith is. How do we maintain a pure mind (heart) toward God so that we can be with Him in eternity?

In Romans 10:17, we clearly understand that faith comes from reading and studying the Bible: "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." After we have OBEYED the Gospel (Rom. 1:16, Rom. 6:17, Mark 16:15-16, Acts 2:38), we are to "go on unto perfection" (Heb. 6:1) by adding to our faith. The inspired apostle Peter plainly teaches in 2 Peter 1:5-10:

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall.

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Tim Eldridge
(Woodland, AL)

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