God wants all believers to have honest hearts for their spiritual promotion and power. Believers with honest hearts are those who hear the word, store it, meditate and pray on it and it brings forth fruits. After we are saved, God also circumcises our hearts to love Him without reservation and rival. “And the Lord, thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord, thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” Spiritual circumcision makes us to love God’s nature, attributes, word, heaven, worship and everything that belongs to Him.

Honest hearts have perfect hatred for anything that is of the devil. Only believers with such hearts enjoy spiritual promotion and power. Stony hearts are hardly penetrable by the water of the word. God promises to take away such stony, hardened and stubborn hearts. In the first covenant, God wrote His laws on tables of stone; but today, His desire is to “put (His) laws into (our) mind, and write them in (our) hearts…”

God purifies our hearts, so, we can get to heaven at last. Entrance to heaven and seeing God on the final day require believers to possess “clean hands and a pure heart.” Knowing the Bible, but living with polluted hearts and going after things of the flesh makes one hell-bound.

If we will see God, even here on earth, we must be pure in heart, without any iota of defilement in our lives. “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

As we love God and desire purity, we should not allow anything to come between God and us, but pray earnestly so that He can perform the spiritual operation in our hearts. While those who care less about God’s demand for salvation and honest hearts may faint, “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.”

Believers aim for heavenly heights with purpose and prayer. They learn from God’s word that He has a purpose for our lives that can only be fulfilled in Christ. They submit to God and allow Christ’s purpose of dying on the cross to be realised in their lives. So, if our individual purpose or goal must be fulfilled, it must align with that of God. He has purposed to give us a brighter, greater, higher, deeper and stronger life.“The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, ‘surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” God wants our lives to have direction and destination. Every day and moment should count for every man and woman of purpose.

We must resist the temptation to meander or live purposeless lives no matter the challenges we face. Adversities may come from Satan, his agents, humans, situations or circumstances, but we must understand that “all things work together for good to them that love God; to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Joseph’s brothers hated and sold him; Potiphar’s wife told a lie against him and he was sent to prison. But all these experiences in the journey of life worked together to land him on the throne because He maintained moral purity. No matter the frowns, smiles, insults and assaults of men, everything will surely work for our good as we remain holy, because God has a purpose for our lives.

People who commit sin are gambling with God’s purpose for their lives. “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.” Irrespective of where we originate, live, work and school, God’s purpose for creating and redeeming us will still be fulfilled. So, we must remain uncompromising and righteous like Daniel in Babylon who “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank…”

Thus, we must not allow defilement to deprive us of the fulfillment of God’s purpose for our lives. Though He has a destiny for us, He still expects that we ask for its fulfillment through prayer of faith.
• Further reading (King James Version): Isaiah 48:17,18; Psalm 81:13-16; Isaiah 54:13-15,17; 2 Timothy 3:16. Luke 8:15; Deuteronomy 30:6; Ezekiel 36:26; Hebrews 8:10; Psalm 24:3,4; Matthew 5:8; Psalm 73:24-26; Isaiah 40:28-31. Isaiah 14:24,27; 46:11; Acts 26:16; Romans 8:28; 1 John 3:8,9; Daniel 1:8; Ezekiel 36:37.