Blessed [fortunate] are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ^[1]

~Jesus (Matthew 5:8)

Our motives, at work, make a difference. Motives are a matter of heart. Jesus challenges us to make sure, in workplaces, that our heart is pure.

In the sixth principle in the Jesus Manifesto (Matthew 5-7), Jesus goes to the core of human life, the heart. Purity or cleanliness was an important religious theme in Jesus’ day. Jesus declares here that a pure heart in our work, is what produces external purity, not vice versa. Our colleagues will see it.

While the people of the bible knew clearly that the human heart was critical, they knew equally well that God’s work in an evil heart could bring purification and a new motivation for following him.

• “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me” (Ps. 51:10).
• The pure in heart are those who have not follow all the rules at work but who nonetheless have given undivided loyalty to God and his ways.

The undivided devotion of the pure in heart will be rewarded by their greatest hope: “They will see God.” While no human can look fully at the glorious face of God, the hope that culminates this age is that “they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). But Jesus’ pronouncement of this principle to those of his day also has an immediate fulfillment of their hopes. Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us” (Luke 1:23).

We must set our heart on God at work. We must not simply comply with corporate ritualism. We must respond to Jesus’ message of the good news of the Jesus reign at work. We will be invited to enter a fellowship with him in which they will experience the unthinkable; we will see God in Jesus. And at work, they will see Jesus in us.

^[1] New American Standard Bible. (2020). (Mt 5:8). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.