The Lord Jesus Christ has a pure heart. We can have a pure heart if we will obey the Spirit of God and keep the commandments given by the Lord and His Apostles. We cannot develop such a heart overnight, but if we follow the Lord faithfully He will purify our heart.

We think when we go to Heaven we will have a new heart. A new heart does not come as a result of dying and entering the spirit world. Every kind of sin began in the spirit world. It is only through the Lord Jesus that we can gain a pure heart.

Those who have a pure heart before the Lord are blessed and shall see God.

The Lord Jesus does not worship idols. When we start out in the Lord we have numerous idols. Much of our Christian life consists of the Lord removing our idols, and this process is as painful as we make it.

We Americans worship money, lust, violence, pleasure, and sometimes witchcraft. In addition we often worship members of our family, our husband, wife, or children. Sometimes we place our health or our life, or the health or life of a loved one, in a position superior to our love for God. Then when one of these idols is threatened we become frantic, being unwilling to let God remove from us what He will.

The individual who is free from such bondages is blessed and shall find peace. But the person who refuses to die to one or more of his idols will be buffeted endlessly until either he surrenders to God or else God assigns him to the fire to be saved in the furnace of affliction.

The Lord Jesus does not "swear by what is false." By our words we are justified and by our words we are condemned. It is true that God considers our heart. But He judges us by what we say and do.

The Lord said, "Every idle word an individual speaks will be brought up in the Day of Judgment." We may not realize it but every word we speak is being recorded.

If we would have the record expunged we must confess our idle words, especially our swearing, to God and seek forgiveness and deliverance. If we do not we shall surely answer for our speech at the Judgment Seat of Christ whether or not we are a Christian.

Our actions, our heart, our love for God, and our speech must be made right in God's sight if we are to stand before Him.

It is true that when we first come to the Lord we are very imperfect in these four areas. God forgives us through Christ and immediately sets about to perfect that which concerns us. We remain without condemnation provided we continue to follow the Spirit of God in putting to death the deeds of our flesh.

The monumental error of Christian thinking is that the initial forgiveness we receive, a forgiveness designed to make it possible for us to start on the path of moral transformation, is a new way in which God relates to man. "God used to require righteousness but now we are saved by grace," we exclaim. I do not think it possible a more successful method of destroying the purpose of the new covenant could be devised.

To be continued.