I loved the verse from Matthew 5:8 that says, For me, impurities were like stones in my soul that blocked my view and caused me to stumble or have to navigate my way around until they were removed. Though I was pure and clean in the Father’s sight through the righteousness of Christ, I still dealt with many things that I knew grieved they heart of God because they were things that blocked my view of His beautiful face. Yet, I had to want it enough to value purity like a treasure of great worth that I had to find. The process didn’t defile me because I was covered by His blood and clothed in His righteousness (not my own!).

Though my outward actions changed fairly quickly the motives of my heart, the manipulations of my soul and the developing of a clear conscience was a process. I asked for clean hands and a pure heart. So…I began to pray that He would make me pure as He is pure. So when I discovered the meaning of both of these names they Lord said to me, “I created you to carry purity and that threatens the enemy more than any other call on your life.” I knew that the enemy had fought long and hard to defile what God had put within me. The interesting thing is that both of these names have the same meaning, “Pure One.”Īs a new believer I would look back upon my first 18 years and I realized they were anything but “pure!” I would do anything for love and often did. For the first three days of my life I was called Karen but on the third day my parents had a visitor who said that I looked like a “Kathleen” and they fell in love with it and changed my name (calling me Kathi for short). In those days moms and babies stayed in the hospital for three days after a birth. When I was born my parents named me Karen. It is something that when I first came to know the Lord as a young 18 year old, felt was out of reach! I didn’t fully understand how the blood of Jesus makes us whiter than snow but also how there is “a process to purity” that we must desire and partner with. Purity brings peace and a clear conscience. There is something deep within most people that long to be clean.

Pure hands clean hearts