How Can I Be Pure in Heart & Forgive?

Bible, Women & Bathrobes Episode 5

In today’s episode we will talk about Matthew 5:8-12 about what it means to be pure in heart, peacemakers and forgiveness toward those who persecute us.

Summary

Tamara, Bonnie & Wendi discuss the importance of purity of heart and mind in order to see God and experience peace in life. They emphasized the need for recognizing and removing impurities through Jesus' help, and how this can lead to a deeper relationship with God and a more peaceful life. They also discussed the importance of gratitude, setting healthy boundaries, and practicing forgiveness in peacemaking. Bonnie, Tamara & Wendi also shared their insights on the power of visualization and the Atonement in facilitating forgiveness and healing, and emphasized the importance of seeking help from counselors when needed.

Key Talking Points

Purity of heart and peacemaking through Jesus Christ.

• Tamara and Bonnie discuss the Sermon on the Mount with Wendi, exploring the idea that the pure in heart can see God.
• Bonnie shares insights on becoming a Zion people and yoking oneself with Christ.
• The group explores the idea of pure in heart as a blueprint for life, with a focus on forgiveness, mercy, and becoming like Jesus Christ.
• They discuss the need for Jesus to remove impurities from their hearts and souls.
• They reflect on how recognizing and asking for Jesus' help can lead to purification and a deeper relationship with God.

Recognizing God's presence in daily life, gratitude, and being a peacemaker.

• Tamara encourages listeners to have the eyes to see God and recognize His presence in their lives, leading to peace and being a peacemaker.
• Wendi shares about overcoming perfectionism by showing up with a willing heart and recognizing God's presence in daily life.

Balancing peacemaking with setting boundaries in a Christ-like way.

• Bonnie discusses the misconception that "peacemaker" means avoiding confrontation, citing Jesus' examples of setting boundaries and standing in truth while being gentle and loving.
• Wendi shares how Christ had healthy boundaries and how it's okay for us to set boundaries in a peaceful way.

Forgiveness and peacemaking through verbalizing and turning over to Christ.

• Forgiveness steps: verbalize, pray, and be a peacemaker.
• Forgiveness helps us deal with hurts and offenses in a better way, as taught by Jesus Christ.
• Wendi forgives others by saying it out loud, which helps separate problems and give strength to approach difficult conversations.
• Forgiveness turns problems over to Christ, which allows for healing.

Forgiveness and healing through repentance and handing burdens to God.

• Bonnie visualizes handing over burdens to Christ.
• Healed individuals can show up as their best selves and treat others better.
• Bonnie and Tamara discuss the power of the Atonement to heal and transform lives.

Main Takeaways

• Jesus is always the answer
• When we let Him refine us and we let Him heal us, we automatically start to become like Him.
• When you are healed, you're going to come from a place of confidence. And where you feel of worth, and where you feel valued, and you feel enough. 

Today’s Podcast Hosts & Guests

Tamara K. Anderson

Tamara, founder of Women Warriors of Light, is a dynamic speaker, award winning author, and a podcaster. She is driven by her Christian faith to inspire faith in Jesus Christ. Alongside her husband, Justin, she navigates the joys and challenges of parenting four children with autism, ADHD, and mental health hurdles. You can find out more about Tamara on her website: https://www.tamarakanderson.com/

Bonnie Randall

Bonnie Randall is a wife, mother, trainer, speaker, actress, copywriter, heart centered life coach and has also been a business and marketing consultant for over 20 years. Her real passion is to help people grow as individuals and teach them how to resolve limiting beliefs. Bonnie enjoys teaching about mental health, abuse prevention and recovery classes. She runs a trauma recovery support group and YouTube channel called, Come Off Conqueror, which helps survivors of abuse find Christ centered healing. Find out more at: https://www.youtube.com/@comeoffconqueror

Wendi Christensen, LCSW

Wendi is the co-founder of Women Warriors of Light. In addition to being a wife and mother, she is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 28 years of experience. Wendi is an intuitive counselor helping individuals release pain, renew hope, and restore light through forgiveness. You can find out more about Wendi on her website: https://wendichristensencounseling.com/

Keywords

#Pureinheart, #Peacemaker, #Forgiveness, #SeeingGod, #Settingboundaries, #Healing

#Atonement, #Burdens, #Gratitude, #Christ-like

Transcription

Tamara Anderson  0:00  

Welcome, question for you guys. Have you ever tried to wonder how you see God in your life like see him in the details of your life? Or have you ever wished that you felt more peaceful, peaceful enough to be a peacemaker? Stay tuned we're going to cover this in more on today's episode of Bible, Women & Bathrobes. 

Tamara Anderson  0:27  

Welcome to Bible, Women & Bathrobes the podcast where faith meets comfort. Join us Tuesday and Thursday morning. As the gals from Women Warriors of Light and their guests, don bathrobes and dive into the inspiring stories of women in the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ. From Esther's bravery to the Sermon on the Mount. We explore it all with warmth, laughter, sisterhood, and maybe even a few sleepy-eyed moments. Tune in live or at your leisure as we learn lessons from scripture which empower women today. 

Tamara Anderson  1:03  

Welcome to Bible, Women & Bathrobes. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson, and joining me today is my co-host, Bonnie Randall. Say hi, Bonnie.

Bonnie Randall  1:13  

Good morning, ladies.

Tamara Anderson  1:20  

And also my co-founder for Women Warriors of Light Wendi Christensen. Good morning, Wendi.

Wendi Christensen  1:26  

Good morning. So glad to be here.

Tamara Anderson  1:29  

Oh, and we are so happy to have you. And we haven't had Wendi on the show today yet. I'm sorry. We haven't had Wendi on the show yet. So I'll introduce her to you. She's amazing. So Wendi Christensen is our co-founder of Women Warriors of Light and in addition to being a wife and mother, she's a licensed clinical social worker with over 28 years of experience. Wendi is an intuitive Christian counselor, helping individuals release pain, renew hope and restore light through the power of forgiveness. So we are so pleased to have Wendi on our show today. 

Tamara Anderson  2:11  

And today guys, we're picking up where we left off last week, as far as we're on the Sermon on the Mount. And we are on Matthew chapter five. And we're going to pick up with verse eight. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." And that's a really cool verse because often we're not, we're told we can't see God. But but but I think we can see him in the details of our lives. So let's dive into that. Bonnie, what do you think it means to be pure in heart?

Bonnie Randall  2:52  

So I had spent a lot of time studying this one, because I didn't really think I fully understood it. But as I dove in, I realized it means a lot of different things. And, you know, there's a lot of it's almost overwhelming, in a way to think that I need to be pure in heart. But then I stumbled upon a really great sermon that talked about how we can become pure in heart as we strive to become a Zion people and yoking ourselves one with Christ. And that made more sense to me as I started thinking about what what is Zion person, that someone who's obviously striving to be a disciple who's striving to do all of the Beatitudes, right? This is a blueprint for life. If we do these things, we will become pure in heart. But another thing that stood out to me was moving on to verse nine is the peacemaker part is somebody who is without darkness in their heart without malice without holding on to grudges, and this idea of that forgiveness and that mercy that we talked about, last time started becoming more real to me. We'll get into that in a second. I want to hear Wendi's thoughts, too.

Tamara Anderson  4:24  

Yeah.

Wendi Christensen  4:24  

I think that's beautiful. Bonnie, what you've said, and I think, you know, when you when you look at pure at heart and becoming a peacemaker, ultimately, we think of Jesus Christ, and how can I best become like my Savior? And he ultimately was the peacemaker, right? He's the one that we pattern, all of that after. When we think of Peacemaker. And when you think of pure in heart, I think it's that simple, Christ-like love that we try to give to ourselves, which I think is sometimes really hard. And then to others. We're we're just seeking to do what's good. We're just constantly seeking to do the best that we can, whatever that looks like. And there's different seasons in life and every season is going to be a little bit different. But where am I in my season right now? And how can I be pure at heart in my season of life right now? 

Tamara Anderson  4:41  

One of the thoughts I had, as far as pure in heart when we talk about something being pure, like just in general. We're talking about it not being polluted. You know that things haven't been mixed in and untainted it, I guess. And if that were the only qualification, all of us, none of us would be pure enough. And I think that the point is, kind of like we were talking about last episode, Bonnie, was just the idea of how, how much we need Jesus to help us remove these impurities from our heart and soul. You know what I mean? 

Tamara Anderson  5:21  

But how we how we need Jesus to remove those impurities. And like, Wendi, you were saying how we need to forgive ourselves. But we need to call on His mercy, which is what we talked about last time to, to apply that forgiveness to ourselves because of Him. And I think it's interesting that every verse in this sermon on the mount, the more we dive into it, they all come back to the same answer. How do you become more merciful? How do you become more meek? How do you become more pure in heart? The answer is Jesus, you know what I mean? We need Jesus to be more pure, more clean, to have those tendencies to do impure things rooted out of us. But first, recognizing that we have now you know, oh, I've got this spot of darkness in me, and I don't want I don't like it. I don't want it to stay there. And so I need Jesus to help me root that out and asking for His help to do that. What can I do to get that out, because I don't want to carry it around with me anymore, you know. 

Tamara Anderson  7:33  

And then the promise that if we do that, we will see God. And I've never seen God in my life, but I have felt His presence. And I have seen Him ministering to me through other people. You know what I mean? And so asking, I have asked, helped me to see your hand in my life today. Because sometimes we feel so overcome and overwhelmed that we don't, that we don't see or perhaps even recognize when He's showing up in our lives. So sometimes asking helped me to see when you do show up, because I'm not seeing it. And I feel like totally abandoned right now in, in the hardness of my journey. Any thoughts on that? Bonnie?

Bonnie Randall  8:28  

Yeah, I'm sure Wendi probably uses the same thing in her practice, right? Like, making a list of in keeping, you know, true to gratitude journals, or whatever. But a lot of times when I have clients who are really down and feeling hopeless, or whatever, like, we'll just start with recognizing one good thing that happened or one win that they had in their life, or one way that God showed up in my life today. And I love that when he brought up the season of our life, I have four really young kids. And it's actually really weird now to think that my oldest is 10. And my youngest is five. And so for a while there it was so chaotic, that the only thing I wanted was to be peaceful in the chaos. I wanted to myself be Zen and the chaos I want to learn next scriptures is this. 

Bonnie Randall  9:29  

But leading into that is this idea of well, in order to be peaceful, and to have that I need to needed to recognize God, and how he was showing up and how he was sustaining me through the day and sustaining me through that chaos. And so I started a journal every night I would just write one thing. That's how I started with one just one way that he showed up in my life. And that started the ball rolling. Eventually, I got to way more than that. And I started to develop a relationship with Him. And realized that during those chaotic moments, I could call out and say a prayer without having to hit my knees. I could just right there in the moment be like, Oh, I can't handle four kids screaming and crying. And two of them have special needs. So they're freaking out extra, just like, total chaos. And He would He would maybe come running, and he would send the angels and sometimes they were just spiritual angels. And sometimes they were literal people showing up at my door to help do it. But I love that you're saying, Tamra, do we have the eyes to see God? And are we recognizing Him showing up?

Tamara Anderson  11:01  

Yeah. Yeah. Wendi, any other thoughts on pure in heart seeing God or maybe even leading into feeling peace and being a peacemaker?

Wendi Christensen  11:12  

Um, you know, as Bonnie was just sharing that biggest thing that popped into my head, I jokingly tell people I'm a recovering or recovered perfectionist, with a lot of women can relate to that, where we just feel like we have to do it all perfectly, in order. It's almost like we feel like we have to do everything perfectly in order to feel worthy of love, now are worthy of being enough. And if I don't do at all, then I'm not at all, you know. And I think that when you look at that scripture, and thinking of gratitude, like Bonnie was just saying, and looking for the hat of God in our daily lives. I've learned over the years, and especially working with many, many people over the years who are perfectionists that God just cares that you bring a willing heart, and that you just are showing up and doing the best you can every day, like, I love that he's like, you bring what you have, and I will make it enough. And that's because of what Jesus Christ did for us. And then we get to sit back and just see how He does show up, like Bonnie was saying, to be able to see like, Oh, look at that beautiful sunrise today, I needed that. Or I needed that smile from that person today. Or I needed that hug from my kid today or my child today, that kind word and to just see it and recognize it, because he just needs us to show up and have a heart that's willing and ready. 

Wendi Christensen  12:44  

Because this life is hard. And He knows it's hard and that we're gonna have these difficult challenges and trials. And He just wants us to see where He shows up. So if we take a minute to look at the gratitude in our lives, I always have my clients and with three gratitude statements every single time. That's how we end every single session, because I want them to see the beautiful things in their lives, and how it almost helps raise us to a higher level as we look at that gratitude, and helps us to move forward and see His hand in our lives. It just gives us that added energy and strength that we need to get through every single day.

Tamara Anderson  13:24  

Yeah. Wow. That's so beautiful. The next verse is blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And I am so curious, we've kind of started dabbling into how once once you feel pure and hard and you've removed those things from yourself, that and you see God in your lives that you're more able to feel, walk, walk a peaceful walk. And it's interesting that when you walk a peaceful walk, you're called the children of God. So it kind of It feels like we're kind of progressing a little bit farther along this journey towards becoming more like Jesus Christ. Bonnie, any thoughts on being a peacemaker and becoming like a child of God or acting more like a child of God, I guess.

Bonnie Randall  14:20  

I have been waiting for this scripture. My mind as I was praying about it and pondering on what God wanted me to share, He opened my my eyes and oh my gosh, okay, we have a bit of a doozy to discuss. Peacemaker does not mean that we... Okay, let's talk about like peacemaker could mean right that we are ending conflicts and that we're trying to avoid confrontation and right like think about the white personality, the color personality right, whites, right? They avoid confrontation and all those things. But it doesn't necessarily mean that Christ didn't avoid confrontation. Hello? Like, how many debates did he get into like the Sadducees and the Pharisees and He was all about not not necessarily like He was confronting things. But He did it in a peaceful and loving and meek way, right? 

Bonnie Randall  15:23  

It goes back to the being meek, like being meek doesn't mean being a doormat, right? It means being strong, and yet gentle, and loving with our rebukes and standing in our truth and stuff. And so one of the things that we as Christians tend to forget is that Christ had boundaries, He set clear boundaries with his disciples, how many times did He go off and take a rejuvenation, you know, nap or 40 days for that stepping away to rejuvenate and you know, He would take He would go off by himself, right? He also held boundaries, and that He was clear about the rules and laws that He was there to, to give He overthrew the tables in the temple, right? Like He had boundaries. And so I would love to discuss, how do we find a happy balance, being a peacemaker, with holding firm to our boundaries in the Christ-like way and surprise, surprise, we just so happened to have a Christ-centered therapist in our group. So you know.

Tamara Anderson  14:50  

Wendi, join...