A Pure Heart Sees Its Impurity

Off and on, I've been reading through "An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount" by Arthur Pink. Presently, I'm in the section where he is expounding upon the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), in particular the one which reads "Blessed [are] the pure in heart for they shall see God." (Matthew 5:8). Pink explains that to be pure in heart is not to have reached a state of sinlessness. Rather, it is to sincerely desire holiness. And it is to be not hypocritical in assessing how far we fall short of what we ought to be, nor self-righteous in our estimation of the holiness that we have attained. The pure-hearted are those who earnestly desire to be holy as God is holy but also recognize, and mourn over, the fact that they are unholy in many ways.

Pink writes:

"A ‘pure heart’ is one which has a pure Object before it, being attracted by ‘the beauty of holiness.’ It is one in which the fear of the Lord has been implanted and the love of God shed abroad, and therefore it hates what He hates and loves what He loves. The purer the heart be, the more conscious it becomes of, and the more it grieves over, indwelling filth. A pure heart is one which makes conscience of foul thoughts, vile imaginations, and evil desires. It is one that mourns over pride and discontent, unbelief and coldness of affection, and weeps in secret over unholiness. Alas, how little is this inward purity esteemed today: the great majority of professors content themselves with a mere form of godliness, a shadow of the reality. The heaviest burden of a pure heart is the discovery that such an ocean of unclean waters still indwells him, constantly casting up mire and dirt, fouling all that he does."