Our spiritual progress as believers in Christ depends on the degree to which our heart is turned toward God so that we may be pure in heart, single in seeking Him, allowing Him to remove anything that is not of Him and infuse us with Him; we all need to aspire to have an enlarged heart, a heart that is both pure and enlarged.
Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to progress spiritually a little more today! We give ourselves to You. Grant us to be pure in heart, even to seek You in singleness and purity. We turn our heart to You. Break through in us. We aspire to have a pure heart and also a heart that is enlarged to embrace all believers, even as You do! Amen, Lord, have Your way in our being! Make us the kingdom people today! Amen!
In order for us believers in Christ to be not just children of God having His life and nature, part of the kingdom of God, but even more, citizens of the kingdom of the heavens, we need to be poor in spirit and pure in heart.
Oh, the blessedness of being poor in spirit and pure in heart so that we may be under Christ’s heavenly ruling as our new King so that we may see God and express Him in His life and represent Him with His authority!
We want to be blessed people, those who continually empty themselves to enjoy something new and fresh with and from the Lord.
On the one hand, we come to the Lord and are poor in spirit, emptied and unloaded so that we have more room in our spirit for His fresh filling. On the other hand, we want to be those who are pure in heart, for the pure in heart will see God.
This means that our heart must be single for the Lord, seeking nothing but the Lord Himself, so that the Lord as the seed of life may grow in us without any frustration.
We think we love the Lord and pursue Him, but our heart is deceitful, for it has many hidden things that we don’t even know of, and we are very much hindered from pursuing the Lord.
If we’re pure in heart, we are rewarded with God Himself; when we see God, we gain God, we are constituted with God, and we deny ourselves. When we see God, we realise that we’re unclean people, living among a people of unclean lips, and we will abhor ourselves.
The real denial of the self is when we see God; when we touch God and see God, we simply deny ourselves.
The God whom we look at today is the consummated Spirit, and we can look at Him by exercising our spirit to contact Him.
When we exercise our spirit, being poor in spirit, we will be purified in our heart to see God, gain God, and deny ourselves.
Turn our Heart toward God to have Spiritual Progress, the Increase of God’s Element in us and the Decrease of Anything that Usurps God
What is spiritual progress? We have seen that all spiritual progress depends on our spiritual hunger. But what does it mean for us to progress spiritually? Is it merely to be a better Christian, know the Bible more, and be more involved with church service or gospel outreach?
Spiritual progress is the increase of the element of God in us and the decrease of things within us that usurp God’s place (1 Tim. 4:15; Col. 2:19).
God wants His Christ to be the first and everything in us and to us; we progress spiritually when the element of God increases in us and when anything else apart from Christ decreases.
If there’s something occupying a part of our heart, that is a part where there’s no spiritual progress, for God’s element cannot increase there.
When a corner of our heart or an aspect of our heart is not occupied and infused with God, we simply hoard junk there, all the rubbish that we accumulate, all the refuse that deposits in our heart and remains there. Oh Lord!
May we learn to open our heart to the Lord, especially as He shines and exposes how many things in us take His place, and how little we let Him work Himself into us. May we let Him make His home in our heart, even make His home deeper in our heart.
As long as there’s one thing, one event, or one person that takes possession of us, there’s something in our heart usurping the place of God (Prov. 4:23).
An idol is anything within us that we love more than the Lord or that replaces the Lord in our life (Ezek. 14:3).
An idol is not just something outward, statues or icons which people worship outside of them; an idol is something within us, even in our very heart, that takes the Lord’s space in us, replacing the Lord in our being. May we turn our heart to the Lord.
He wants to fill our vessel; He created us as vessels to contain Him, and our heart is the opening of the vessel.
As long as we’re occupied and filled with something other than God, as long as we don’t yield the proper place to God, we’re fallen. How do we know we are occupied by something in our heart?
How do we know something takes God’s place in us? It is whether we love the Lord as we do something, say something, or spend time in something that our heart loves.
Spiritual progress is the increase of the element of God and the decrease of anything that usurps God. May we be pure, that is, may we not allow our heart to be occupied by anything other than God (Matt. 13:19-23).
Even necessary things related to our human existence, our family, and our health, can take the Lord’s place in our heart and cause us to be impure in heart. Our spiritual progress depends on the degree to which our heart is turned toward God (4:17; 2 Cor. 3:16; cf. 2 Kings 23:25).
When we turn our heart toward the Lord, He has a way to shine on the things that we love more than Him, the things that replace Him in us, and the things that occupy us.
If we say Amen to His light, allowing Him to expose and purge those things from our heart, we have spiritual progress. When something is shed from us, when something that occupies our heart is removed from us under the Lord’s shining, we gain more of God, and we have spiritual progress.
But if we remain in what we have, what we experience, what we know, what we have done, etc, our heart is impure, our vision of Christ is blurred, and we are not pure in heart in seeking God.
The Lord told us that, if we follow Him and be His disciple, we need to forsake our own possessions (Luke 14:33).
We may forsake all things initially, but we may pick them up later. We cannot forsake all things unless the Spirit works in us.
The work of the cross can be executed only by the Holy Spirit in us; when the Spirit operates in us, we will drop things off, and we will love the Lord in purity of heart.
May we have a heart that is open to the Lord so that He may operate in us as the Spirit to remove anything that replaces God in us.
The extent of the decrease of the things occupying us for us to have an increased capacity to be filled with God depends on the degree to which our heart is turned toward God.
May we turn our heart toward God in all things! One way to be pure in our heart is to be in the Word of God.
The more we are in the Word of God, the more we read, pray, and muse on the word of God, the purer we become (Psa. 12:6; 119:140; John 17:17).
There’s the washing of the water in the Word which removes all impurities and blemishes from us, making us simple and single again.
May we come to the Lord in His word by turning our heart to Him and exercising our spirit to contact Him so that He may have a way to shine on us, expose anything that occupies us, and purify our heart.
Lord Jesus, we turn our heart to You. May the element of God increase in us a little more today. May there be a decrease of the things that usurp God’s place in our being. Oh Lord, You know and You see what occupies us. Shine on us. May there be no thing, no event, and no person that takes possession of our heart! Expose any idol, anything within us that we love more than the Lord or that replaces the Lord in our life! Amen, Lord, may we be pure in heart! May our heart be occupied only with God, seeking God in purity! Grant us to have the spiritual progress in our Christian life. Help us turn our heart toward God. May we progress spiritually as we turn our heart toward You, allowing You to shine in us to expose and remove anything that occupies us. Oh Lord, gain more ground in our heart. May there be a decrease of the self with its things and the increase of the element of God in us! Amen, Lord, we come to You in Your word! Your word is pure, and we love Your word! Purify our heart as we read and pray over Your word!
Aspire to have an Enlarged Heart with the Intimate Concern of the Ministering Life
On the one hand, we need to be pure in heart, and we need to come to the Lord concerning our heart to let Him shine on us and expose anything that causes our heart to be impure. On the other hand, we need to aspire to have an enlarged heart (Psa. 119:32).
God was pleased with Solomon’s offerings and heart that was turned toward Him, so He told Solomon to ask for anything, and He will give it to him.
Solomon asked for wisdom to care for God’s people; in addition to this, God also gave him a large heart. We all need to aspire to have an enlarged heart.
1 Kings 4:29 tells us that God gave Solomon wisdom and very much understanding and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore.
Largeness of heart is like the sand on the seashore. The sea is very large, but larger than the sea is the seashore, which contains or encloses the sea. God set the sand as a boundary for the sea (Jer. 5:22). Solomon’s heart was larger than the sea.
We need to have not only a pure heart but even more, an enlarged heart; our heart needs to be enlarged. Solomon was competent to oversee God’s people because he had wisdom and a large heart, which are two aspects of one thing.
Although he asked only for the wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in among God’s people (1 Kings 3:5-9; 2 Chron. 1:10), God gave him “largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore” (1 Kings 4:29). In the church life today what is most needful is the largeness of heart.
This doesn’t mean that our heart needs to be open to sin or to evil things; rather, we need to be enlarged in our heart to love and care for others even as God does.
Paul told the Corinthians that his mouth is open to them and his heart is enlarged, but they were constricted in their heart toward them.
The Corinthian believers could all fit in the apostle’s heart, but they were constricted in their heart toward him.
Due to his largeness of heart, Paul had the wisdom and the way to care for the Corinthian believers. The believers in Christ today have many problems, and shepherding them requires a largeness of heart.
If our heart is small, tiny, we can’t shepherd people or love them; we cannot forgive them or care for them. We may be faithful to the Lord and we may love the word and the ministry, but our heart may not be enlarged.
Our attitude is that we love God, we love the Word, we love the ministry, and we meet with the saints regularly, but we do not have an enlarged heart toward the saints.
We cannot embrace the saints, and we are not able to care for them in a proper way. Our attitude toward the saints should be to embrace them, envelop them, and bear their burdens, care for them, and bear them before the Lord.
We must be genuine ministers of the new covenant, having an enlarged heart with the intimate concern of the ministering life, which is a fruitful life (2 Cor. 7:2-3).
But if we’re concerned only with ourselves, our family, and the saints close to us, we have a small heart. Oh Lord!
The apostle Paul had an enlarged heart, and he was able to embrace all the believers regardless of their condition.
Therefore, he had an open mouth, being able to speak frankly to the believers regarding their real situation, into which they have been misled (6:11).
If our heart is not large, we have no right to be frank; our frankness will be just something legal, something judgmental, something that condemns others.
Our heart needs to be enlarged; a frank and honest word will be effective only if our heart is enlarged.
This kind of openness and enlargement is needed very much today to bring back, reconcile, the misled or distracted believers to God. May we aspire to have an enlarged heart and pray about this to the Lord.
Lord Jesus, we aspire to have an enlarged heart. Enlarge our heart and grant us Your wisdom to care for the saints. Grant us to have largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. Amen, Lord, may our heart be larger than the sea so that we may love and care for all the saints. We turn our heart to You. Save us from having a small heart, a heart that is constricted in ourselves toward others. Enlarge our heart, dear Lord! May we be genuine ministers of the new covenant, having an enlarged heart with the intimate concern of the ministering life! Amen, may we be able to embrace all believers regardless of their condition and may we speak something of Christ to them! Oh Lord, enlarge our heart to fit in all the saints, even to be able to speak to them concerning Christ and even speak a frank word concerning their real situation! Have a way in our being, Lord. Make us those who allow You to enlarge our heart!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 37, pp. 141-145, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crucial Aspects of Matthew 5 through 7 (2025 September ITERO), week 1, The Blessedness of Being Poor in Spirit and Pure in Heart That We May Be under Christ’s Heavenly Ruling as Our New King and That We May See God to Express Him in His Life and Represent Him with His Authority – day 4.
- Hymns on this topic:
– O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me, / And all things else recede; / My heart be daily nearer Thee, / From sin be daily freed. / Each day let Thy supporting might / My weakness still embrace; / My darkness vanish in Thy light, / Thy life my death efface. (Hymns #395 stanza 1 and chorus)
– Lord, make us pure in heart; / For we’ll be not content until / You all our being fill, / O Lord, renew our mind, emotion, will— / Lord Jesus, grow in us. / Yes, Lord, impress our heart / That we must take You in each day; / The seed will have its way; / Your growing brings the kingdom here to stay— / Lord Jesus, grow in us. (Hymns #1132 stanzas 6-7)
– Oh, may Thy Cross within me / Deepen its work and burn / In me enlarge Thy measure, / And me to ashes turn. / Oh, may Thy Spirit fill me / Each day more than before, / And may Thy living water / On me and thru me pour. (Hymns #280 stanza 4)
