Mark Twain once said, “Sincerity is everything.  If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Twain’s trademark cynicism often makes for witty observations about life in this fallen world, but the idea of faking sincerity is so pathetic that one can hardly smile for blushing.  Why do we blush?  Because we know the shame of fakery, play–acting, and wearing different masks to fit the occasion in which we find ourselves.

But King Jesus — when he gave his followers the kind of straight talk that we all long for, in the Sermon on the Mount — said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5.8).

Pure in heart.  Sincerity.  Living one life and living it out in the open before everyone.

This is not so easy to pull off as we’d like to believe.  If you reflect on it deeply for even a couple of minutes, you’ll think about the different masks you’re tempted to wear, according to the situation or circumstances. 

How many of us play different roles depending on the audience?  Are we truly one and the same person for the spouse, the children, the church, the boss, the pious friend, the foulmouthed friend, the neighbor, the relative who thinks this way, the relative who thinks the other way, the enemy, and the stranger?  To cite a trivial example perhaps, are we the same driver regardless of whether the officer is following us or not?  Or something not so trivial at all — are we looking at web pages of the same character when we’re alone as when we’re in public? 

When we put on different masks, this is not reality, but play–acting.  It is the essence of hypocrisy.  Many people find themselves weaving such a web of deceit and insincerity around themselves that even they can no longer tell which part of them is real and which part is make believe. 

But Jesus calls his people to lives of single–minded sincerity, free from the wearying schizophrenia of a divided self.  He calls us to be pure in heart, both in our relationships with God and with man.  He calls us to be free from all falsehood.  He calls us to transparent lives of utter sincerity, in public and in private. 

This is the freedom and wholeness to which Christ calls us… lives without guile, where thoughts, words, actions, and motives are pure and unmixed with hidden deceits. 

This is the kind of purity that Jesus is interested in — the “in heart” purity.  Just as the kind of poverty he was interested in five verses earlier was the “in spirit” poverty.  The emphasis here is inward, moral, heart–righteousness… as opposed to outward, ceremonial, rule–righteousness. 

King Jesus is no fan of mere rule–righteousness.  He had a few choice words for that kind of hypocrisy — see Matthew 23.25–28. 

Only the pure in heart will see God.  If this is so, then we need to daily run to Jesus Christ.  He alone is without guile; he is the only man who is absolutely pure in heart.  May we be found in him, growing into his likeness.

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?  And who shall stand in his holy place?  He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully… Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart… Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me… Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart… And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith… The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
—The Holy Scriptures