Clean hands, pure hearts, seek God

How can we be authentic in living out our faith, not lukewarm but on fire with passion for God? How can we live in such a way as to make the Christian faith attractive to those around us, to make them want what we have? I think the answer can be found in the words of David in Psalm 24:
“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.
 He will receive blessing from the LORD
    and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Such is the generation of those who seek him,
    who seek the face of the God of Jacob” Psalm 24:4-6
It all starts with seeking God. It is easy to come along to church on Sunday morning and come to an extra meeting once a month. But what really makes a difference is daily resolving to seek God. Clean hands, pure heart, seek God as the Friday Night Lights translation might put it…
We must have clean hands and a pure heart. We must stay away from all the things of society that are corrupt and fallen. It means being selective about what we watch, about what we listen to, about how we talk about people. We must not lift up our soul to what is false. We must reject that idols of our generation, living to worship God not money, sex or celebrity. We must be people of integrity, known for keeping our word and not swearing deceitfully. We must actively seek the face of our God, devoting ourselves to getting stuck into His word and then living it out.
Jesus is not looking for lukewarm nominal Christians who are going through the motions. He is calling us to be authentic in our faith, transformed from the inside out by encountering His grace. It is when we live out that sort of life of being a generation who seek the face of our loving God that people will see there is something powerfully different about us, and that will make them curious. They will want to know why we are so different. They will want to know how we can be content in all situations. They will want to know how when sorrows like sea billows roll we can say it is well with my soul. And that is when we will suddenly find ourselves surrounded with opportunities to tell them about the hope we have in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. So resolve today to seek the face of God, with clean hands and a pure heart, living in such a way that those around us will not be able to help but be curious about what has caused us to live such radically different lives.