a clean heart

SCRIPTURE: Deuteronomy 23
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. [Luke 11:39-41]
Notice how Jesus ties justice and compassion to moral cleanness.
Deuteronomy does the same.
For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you. [Deuteronomy 23:14]

What make people ‘unclean’: those who have been emasculated, those born of forbidden marriages, those belonging to the Ammonites or Moabites (interestingly, there is grace for the Edomites and Egyptians!).
Also, those tainted by bodily emissions of all sorts – this was a hygiene issue.
Also those engaged in prostitution, and even the money made that way.
But then it goes on to talk about showing mercy to an abused slave, not charging interest of your own people, keeping vows to do good, and allowing people to snack from your grapes.
These are specific situations that demonstrate compassion, mercy, kindness.

God hates sin, immorality, moral impurity and perversity.
To reinforce God’s perfection and our sin, God through Moses commanded strict distinctions between clean and unclean.
The intention was to drill the fear of God into those who did not understand or respect God.
Years of religious confusion in Egypt made the Israelites ignorant of God.

That the Lord – the only God over all other ‘gods’ and ‘powers’ – lived and walked among them was radical.
As radical then as it is today when we say we live in a close, personal relationship with God through Jesus.
This is amazing, but we should never forget how amazing.
God is still awesome, holy; He still hates immorality and perversity and greed and cruelty.
His intent behind all these specific rules was not to raise up a people committed to religious and ritualistic purity, but a people committed to moral purity.

He wants our hearts transformed into loving, kind, moral and generous servants.
If we allow God to clean our hearts in this way, then everyone else will be clean to us too.
We live in personal fellowship with the God of the Universe; He desires that we be good and gracious just like Him – this is what makes us clean!

PRAYER:
Lord, help me not to be religious, help me to be good and gracious, to be like You. Change my heart, O Lord!