In Psalms 24 David asserts question.

Who?

“Who can ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place?” Or in other words, who can be in God’s presence. What qualifies us to see and know God? This moves beyond the surface level of just knowing about God, but to really KNOW God. To have a relationship with Him. To commune with Him.

David goes on to answer that question. “The one with clean hands and a pure heart”. Speaking of this one, John Calvin describes the connection between hands and heart in his commentary of Psalms 24.  He writes, “Under the purity of the hands and of the heart, and the reverence of God’s name, he comprehends all religion, and denotes a well ordered life. True purity, no doubt, has its seat in the heart, but it manifests its fruits in the works of the hands. The Psalmist, therefore, very properly joins to a pure heart the purity of the whole life.”

But the question still remains.  If this is what it takes to enter into the presence of God, how can a person really have clean hands and a pure heart!

Our hope rests solely in the shed blood of Jesus Christ!  Just as David and all of the Old Testament was looking forward to a coming Messiah, we look back on the finished work of that Messiah!

2 Cor. 5:21 says,  “He [God the Father] made the One who did not know sin [Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Thank you Father for making a way for us to have clean hands and a pure heart, even when we were filthy dirty!  Thank you Father for substitutionary work of Jesus on my behalf.  Because of Him I have a righteousness not of my own, but of His.

“Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.”  Through the work of Jesus on the cross we can be part a generation that seeks Him.  Being part of this group is not through genetic heritage as the Israelites thought, but it is through spiritual heritage.

Rise up O generation!  You who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus, You who have been given clean hands and a pure heart, Rise Up!

I am seeking a generation who will be intentional with the hope we have been given.  That we would live it and share it.  That our churches and youth ministries would exemplify what it means to be a generation that seeks His face!

Your fellow worker in the field, Adam