Intimacy: the Motivation for Purity

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

--Jesus, Matthew 5:8

“Mauriac dismissed most of the arguments in favor of sexual purity that he had been taught in his Catholic upbringing. ‘Marriage will cure lust’: it did not for Mauriac, as it has not for so many others, because lust involves the attraction of unknown creatures and the taste for adventure and chance meetings. ‘With self-discipline you can master lust’: Mauriac found that sexual desire is like a tidal wave powerful enough to bear away all the best intentions. ‘True fulfillment can only be found in monogamy’: this may be true, but it certainly does not seem true to someone who finds no slackening of sexual urges even in monogamy. Thus he weighed the traditional arguments for purity and found them wanting.

“Mauriac concluded that self-discipline, repression, and rational argument are inadequate weapons to use in fighting the impulse toward impurity. In the end, he could find only one reason to be pure, and that is what Jesus presented in the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’ In Mauriac’s words, ‘Impurity separates us from God. The spiritual life obeys laws as verifiable as those of the physical world….Purity is the condition for a higher love—for a possession superior to all possessions: that of God. Yes this is what is at state, and nothing less.’

“Reading Francois Mauriac’s words did not end my struggle with lust. But I must say that beyond all doubt that I have found his analysis to be true. The love God holds out to us requires that our faculties be cleansed and purified before we can receive a higher love, one attainable in no other way. That is the motive to stay pure. By harboring lust, I limit my own intimacy with God.

“The pure in heart are truly blessed, for they will see God. It is as simple and as difficult, as that.”

--Phillip Yancey in The Jesus I Never Knew (p. 119), reflecting on the writings of French Catholic Francois Mauriac

I read and reviewed Yancey’s book in one of my classes this semester. Personally, this one quote was worth the whole read—it reverberated with me. There is no real intimacy with God without purity. God had been challenging me all semester to view purity not so much as an abstention from certain behaviors, but rather a passionate pursuit of just One thing. God. I say God has been challenging me in this—I would really like to say I have learned this, but really, I am struggling so much to apply it.

God. Possessing God. Finding intimacy with Him. Accepting all His love and being able to love Him back. This is the goal. Nothing less and nothing more. Jesus spoke of this kind intimacy in His “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17. He desired that His followers “may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:21). Jesus sees this intimacy with Him as the path to real joy (John 17:13).

But how do we get to knowing God like this? Not just knowing intellectually about Him, but seeing Him for who He is? How do we move beyond intellectual conjuncture and into the realm of seeing—the experiential realm of realizing the reality of God Himself? Its precondition is purity. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” How does one ”get” pure? We know we can’t do it ourselves. Notice it is purity in heart. It is not people who simply do pure things or believe in pure things, nor people who just think purely. Purity is a disposition of the heart.

Some people seem to think (or at least act like) that the goal of Christian living is discipline. But discipline is a petty aim. What does it get you? If discipline is an end in itself, it either makes you feel smugly self-righteous, or sorely disappointed and lifeless because it you just missed out on something that seems really cool and pleasurable. Why discipline ourselves? Should we even bother to pursue discipline? Discipline has this tendency to either feed my pride or make me feel like a failure! A couple times I have wondered that in order to purse a grace-filled life, maybe I should ditch any pursuit of discipline altogether.

But perhaps the key to practicing discipline is to realize that discipline is not the end in itself. It is one aspect (among others) of growing toward purity of heart which in turn produces intimacy with God. Discipline is one way we cooperate with God in making us pure. But if we forget the goal of discipline (real intimacy with Him) we are elevating a secondary pursuit to an abysmal first.

Purity, likewise, is not to be pursued as merely an end in itself. It is not merely a form of self-discipline to make me a better person—that is far too weak a goal to accomplish something so insurmountable. Purity (more specifically for me: Moral Purity) has that end of intimacy with Christ. I want to Possess Him and live in the richness of His love. That is the motivation that propels me to repent (turn away from) inferior affections and to nurture passion for Him. I crave Intimacy and I know that there is only one Person who can fully satisfy that craving. I have tasted of His intimate love and caring nature, but do not live in it moment by moment.

Change our hearts, oh Lord, to truly desire You above all else.