"I" Disease

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.      Matthew 5:8  

A coach often says, "There is no 'I' in team." But if you watch certain players, it's obvious their accomplishments are more important to them than the team's.  

As children of God we are also guilty of this. Jesus reminds us to be pure in heart. We need to keep our eyes on him, not on ourselves, for the benefit of the "team." Because we are sinful, we need God’s help to do this. He knows we have an impure heart. We are selfish and even some of our "good" actions are self serving. Our intentions might be more for personal attention than for the benefit of others. But through the sacrifice of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit we become a new person. The more we let the Holy Spirit guide us the more Godly our actions will be. This faith allows us to see God and His glory in all things every day.

All we have to do is look at Jesus’ life and his motives.  Never once did he act for the sake of himself.  He always had the best intentions of the “team” in mind.  He was constantly looking out for the best of others.  Even when he was faced with the certainty of his own death, he didn’t stray from his objective.  He asked his father to take it away from him if possible, but if not he was willing to go through with it. He had a pure heart.  As we grow in our faith in Jesus we too will be able to see things more clearly.  We will have purer motives and a more “team” (kingdom of God) focused objective. 

Today we’ll use the words that the psalmist wrote as our prayer:   Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence or take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.   (Psalm 51: 10-12)