The Power of Purity: Seeing God More Clearly

By Matthew Ochoa

Would you drink a bottle of water that read, “98% pure, 2% sewage”? Your answer would most likely be no. The problem with most Christians is that they will live a 98% pure life and will allow 2% of junk into their hearts. Because of this, they become blind and deaf to the voice of God. In this book, you are going to discover what it means to be pure in every area of our lives.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.”

Do you have a burning desire to “see God” more? There is power in purity and in this book, Matthew will dig into many Scriptures to help you see God more clearly in your life. Experience God like never before and wipe away the mud from your eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781387298662

Book preview

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible® Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.

Definitions marked Strong’s Concordance are taken from the Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong. Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Nelson, Nashville Tennessee.

The Power of Purity: Seeing God More Clearly

EBOOK ISBN 978-1-387-29866-2

Copyright © 2022 by Deep Rooted Ministries

Published by Deep Rooted Ministries

Edited by Mark Johnston, breakthroughvictory.com

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without the express written consent of the Publisher.

www.deeprooted.church

To my beautiful wife, Stephanie,

I couldn’t do anything that I do without your love and support. You have been there since the beginning and I’m blessed to be called your husband.

To my son, Matthew,

I have loved you before the day that you were conceived. I can’t wait to show you everything God has shown me in my lifetime. You will grow to be a powerful man of God used for His glory.

To my friends and family,

Thank you for supporting what God has called us to do with our lives. Your generosity and love has fueled the fire and will continue for years to come.

To my new reader,

I pray that this book inspires you to cling to God’s Word like never before. Trust in His process and never look back!

Introduction

Purity that comes from pleasing the Lord is one of the most important things a person can attain in life. Unfortunately, many people choose to do what pleases themselves over what pleases the Lord. This saddens my heart because if people understood how transformative and beneficial purity can be to their overall wellness, they would pursue it with all their hearts.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, purity is defined as free of dirt, pollutants, infectious agents, or other unwanted elements. This definition gives us a clear picture of what purity consists of. God wants us to live pure lives that are free from unwanted elements that aren’t good for us. When something is unwanted it drags us down and causes frustration.

Hoarding provides a sobering example of how the accumulation of things can drag people down and prevent them from living up to their purity potential. I remember the first time I saw the show Hoarders. I was shocked by the horrible conditions people chose to live in. The houses themselves weren’t the problem; it was the contents inside that made them unlivable. Some of the places were so filled with stuff that they looked more like garbage landfills than homes.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The hoarders had become so emotionally attached to the junk they had acquired that they couldn’t bear the thought of parting with it. Because of this emotional attachment, their lives were out of control. One of their situations was so bad they lost their own child in the mess and couldn’t find them. Thankfully the child was found; however, we can all agree humans were not designed for this kind of toxic existence.

Granted, I’m not the cleanest person you will ever meet (just ask my wife!), but there is only so much mess I can take before I start feeling bogged down. When my office desk gets cluttered with papers, notebooks, Bibles, and other work-related things, I stop what I’m doing and reorganize. Once everything is all cleaned and neat, I feel refreshed, renewed, and ready for anything. This is a small example of what I mean by pursuing purity.

When the things in our lives are not organized, the result is confusion, distraction, grief, and ultimately disappointment. If we don’t take steps to rectify the situation, we can lose control and life can become totally overwhelming. With all that in mind, this book is not to teach you how to clean your physical house or organize your work desk; it is to help you learn the importance of purifying your heart.

Chapter 1

A Pure Spirit

To put this journey of purity in its Biblical context, let’s review a very important scripture from the mouth of Jesus Himself. I believe this verse is a pivotal key to living life in true Christian victory:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:8

The word pure means guiltless, and the word heart refers to both the spirit and soul within each of us (Strong’s Greek Concordance). Receiving Jesus and a new spirit is the first and most crucial step of purity we must undergo.

We are all born into sin, and that is good news because it means no one is born more holy than anyone else (except Jesus). The Bible says that all of us have sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). If all of us have sinned, then all of us need a Savior to purify us.

There are three parts of our lives that we must purify. The first part is our spirit. When you are born, you have a spirit, but it is of the world. When you give your life to Jesus, you receive a new spirit from God. In the next verse, the writer, Paul, contrasts the spirit we receive when we are born with the spirit we receive when we give our lives to Jesus.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

1 Corinthians 2:12

When the Bible speaks of the spirit, it is speaking of the heart also. In Ephesians 3, Paul mentions Christ dwelling in our hearts. Both heart and spirit relate to the same Greek word kardia, which is where the word cardia comes from. So, the word heart is used regarding the spirit of a man, and later we will also see how it is used to describe the soul of a man.

You might be thinking, Aren’t spirit and soul the same thing? 1 Thessalonians 5:23 tells us that there are three parts to each of us. The first is our spirit, the middle is our soul, and the last is our body. The spirit is the way God communicates with us. He talks to us directly from His Spirit into our spirit. He is always speaking to us and directing us.

The spirit of God in those who have given their lives to Jesus contains all the good things we need to live a victorious life. The spirit contains healing, wisdom, discernment, love, joy, peace, patience, and all the remaining fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). It is through our soul that we hear the voice of God and receive His grace. The soul is where our emotions and thoughts form, how we see ourselves, where our desires and life goals live, and much more. The soul is the deciding factor of success and failure in life.

When our mind is renewed, the spirit flows through our souls and into our bodies. The body is the outward part of us. When you look in the mirror you are looking at your physical body. When someone needs healing for their body, through faith and renewing their mind to God’s Word, the healing power that is inside of their spirit flows through the soul and into the body. It is through this purifying process that healing miracles take place.

If you notice the diagram on the previous page, the body and the spirit have no direct connection. Your soul must be in line with the spirit. Your soul is what bridges the gap between your spirit (which is subject to life) and your body (which is subject to death).

Without having a pure spirit, nothing else we purify matters. The moment we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, He gives us a brand new, clean, perfect spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17). The sin that made our spirit dirty and unrighteous is wiped away. This is important because Jesus says that our flesh (soul and body) profits us nothing, but it is the spirit that gives us life (John 6:63)!

The only way we can go to heaven is through accepting Jesus and receiving Him into our hearts to make us brand new from the inside out. There is not a good enough deed we can do to enter heaven. The Pharisees believed that through their good works and holiness they could enter heaven and ultimately see God.

Friends, the only way you can truly see God in heaven is if you give your life to Jesus. That is it. You don’t need to give away a million dollars to the church or stop sinning for a whole year. The only way you can see God and be in His presence for eternity is through accepting His Son’s final sacrifice on the cross.

You’re Not A Sinner Saved By Grace

There are many people in the body of Christ who believe that we are all just sinners saved by grace. Any time they hear the word righteous they cringe inside and remind themselves of how unworthy they are. But when our spirit is purified by the blood of Jesus, we receive a new identity and reformed into new, righteous creations in the eyes of the Lord.

Those who deny righteousness in Christ also quote Isaiah 64:6: But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. But they don’t understand these words were spoken before Jesus came. The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus offers righteousness to all who repent and follow Him!

If you have given your life to Christ, you no longer need to pray, Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me, like the psalmist David. This prayer and others like it in the Old Testament were stated before Jesus came and died on the cross to take away our sins. At that time, all were still sinners in need of a Savior. But Jesus came and redeemed us from unrighteousness and sin. If you haven’t given your life to Christ and you want to purify your spirit and be made new, now is your chance. Go to page 187 towards the back of the book to receive the Lord Jesus and come right back here!

Freedom From Death

The HELPS Word Studies book translates the word death as separation from the life (salvation) of God forever. Every single person on this earth will eventually die physically—believer and unbeliever alike—however, non-believers will also die a second, spiritual death and be sent to hell.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:23

This doesn’t mean that if you sin after you became a Christian you will go to hell; rather, it means that if you don’t accept Christ as your Savior, you will die with the sin of not accepting Jesus and be eternally separated from the life of God. Now that Jesus has fulfilled the law, believers are no longer subject to eternal death. The choice is yours. It’s called the gift of free will, and God has given it to all of us.

Here’s a metaphor to help explain how free will works. Let’s say that you need to travel across the state in your vehicle. You have a choice to get directions and follow them or try to do it yourself. You can try to get to your destination all on your own, but I guarantee you will at some point go the wrong way and miss your destination altogether. Who’s responsible for missing the destination? You would be. The same holds true for salvation.

People often point the finger at God when they hear about hell. They accuse God and say, God is the one who sends people to hell. But in reality, God gives everyone a choice to believe. The consequence of sin (not accepting Jesus) is death (spiritual separation from God).

Praise God that we have been freed from eternal death! When we die physically on this earth our real life starts in heaven. This isn’t the only type of death this scripture is referring to though. When we willfully allow sin into our lives, we are simultaneously opening the door of our lives to Satan.

Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Romans 6:16

Here again we see the consequence of sin is death. Death can mean a plethora of things like sickness, depression, oppression, poverty, strife, divorce, and more. In short, anything negative is the result of death.

If you yield yourself to sin, you are making Satan your master. On the contrary, when you yield to God’s Word, you are making God your master. Who do you think wants to give you good things in life: Satan, or God? Right, the obvious answer is God! Choose to follow God’s Word.

To make myself as clear as possible, I am not saying God withholds blessings from us when we sin. What I am saying is that when we sin, our heart becomes hardened, and we are less sensitive to God and His blessings. Sin is a luxury that you cannot afford. There is a reason why Satan uses sin as his main weapon to distract Christians from fulfilling their callings.

Sin may be pleasurable for a season (Hebrews 11:25), but when that season is over, negative consequences always follow. I don’t want you to experience that, so learn from my own experience rather than experiencing it yourself.

Let me tell you from experience, you do not want to play around with sin. It will