Psalm 24:4
4 He that hath clean [naqiy] hands, [kaph] and a pure [bar] heart; [lebab] who hath not
lifted up [nasa'] his soul [nephesh] unto vanity, [shav'] nor
sworn [shaba] deceitfully. [mirmah] KJV-Interlinear
4 He
who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to
falsehood, And has not sworn deceitfully. NASB
So, who can reside within
Gods dwelling? Who can stand within Gods presence?
Only the person who has
clean hands. The hands are the
instruments of our activities. We do
things with our hands. We work, we read
or hold documents, we perform tasks of every type, and we use our hands to
accomplish our daily work or hobbies or tasks.
Whether our activity is
good or bad, is irrelevant. Our hands
symbolize the sum total of how we do things in life.
To have clean hands,
means to conduct ourselves uprightly. To deal with ourselves with honesty, to
deal with others with integrity, to do work in the right way, and not take
shortcuts or cheat, and so forth.
One who has a pure heart,
is a reference or the inner thoughts of your soul, the activity of your thoughts.
While the hands reveal
the honor of ones actions or external self, the heart reveals the honor of ones
thoughts and intents or the internal self.
Your mind is constantly
thinking. The heart of the soul is the
thinking pump of the soul, the activity or circulation of your constant
thoughts. If you are constantly tempted,
constantly angry, constantly negative, constantly without attitude, and so
forth, then your heart is not pure. This
applies to every common person on earth, without exception
Who has not lifted up his
soul to vanity, refers to emptiness, the emptiness of an empty life. To lift up ones soul is to commit oneself to
a pattern of life. To pursue vanity, to
pursue self-righteousness, to pursue asceticism, to pursue lasciviousness, to
pursue crime, to pursue indifference, to pursue disobedience toward God and
truth, all these and more then, are a pursuit of an empty life.
Your pattern of life
reveals your pursuit.
An empty life is a
nothing life. One can often times wonder
if there isn’t anything more in life, and that answer is of course, yes. If you have nothing but emptiness, then there
is a great deal more, you just have to change in order to get there.
But, you cannot relate to
God when you reside in emptiness.
To swear deceitfully, is
the verbal manifestation of your total being.
What you think, what you intend, what you want, what you do, all of your
activity, is, sooner or later, revealed within your spoken words.
These things, both from
your external self, from your internal self, from how you reveal your life, all
of your essence disqualifies you from being able to stand before God, from
being able to utilize Gods power.
Only one person qualifies
in this manner and that person is Jesus Christ.
Your only access to God is through Him, because you cannot approach God,
on your own or though anything or anyone else, or by any other means.
